Category: ontario family property

Married spouses share in any increase in the value of family property between the date of marriage and the date of separation.  When the marriage ends, the spouse with the lower Net Family Property receives a payment for one-half the difference in the two.  That means an equalization payment.
The debt that a spouse brings into the marriage will impact on the spouse’s equalization entitlement.
What happens when the face amount of the debt is greater than its “real value”?  Should a court reduce the face amount of the debt to reflect the likelihood that it will remain unpaid?  The Ontario Court of Appeal was recently confronted with that issue for a debt owing on the date of marriage.
In the case of Zavarella v. Zavarella, the Court of Appeal discounted the wife’s date of marriage debt to zero.  The wife owed about $60,000.00 on the date of marriage.  She had made an assignment into bankruptcy a few weeks before the date of marriage.  Under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, the debt remained owing until the wife’s discharge from bankruptcy.  Given the wife’s assignment into bankruptcy just before the marriage, there was no prospect of payment of the debt.  The Court discounted the debt to zero and remove a county Court Judgement.
The Zavarella case is consistent with the Court’s approach of discounting of family debts based on likelihood of repayment.  In the past, the Court of Appeal has discounted debts owed to family members because they are not likely to enforce them.  The Court has also allowed parties to discount assets based on the contingent costs of realizing the asset.  The court has allowed parties’ to reduce the value of those assets by the anticipated legal fees on the date of separation.

In navigating such legal intricacies, it becomes crucial to enlist the support of experts in the field. Engaging the services of the best private investigator UK can provide valuable insights into the circumstances surrounding familial debts and asset valuations. A prospective approach, rather than hindsight, remains fundamental in evaluating these complex matters within the legal framework. Furthermore, when suspicions of marital discord arise, infidelity investigations can offer additional clarity and understanding.

 

 

 

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With the economy in a free fall, the Ontario Court of Appeal’s (OCA) decision in Serra v. Serra could not be more timely. The OCA decision reversed the trial court’s judgment and replaced it with an order requiring the husband to make a lesser payment to his wife to resolve the property claim under Ontario’s Family Law Act.

The decision allows litigants to pursue an unequal division of net family property where market driven forces cause a decrease in the post separation value of assets.

Modern family law reflects a social policy of recognizing spouses equal contributions towards marriage by dividing family property equally. Ontario’s family property law differs from many jurisdictions because it uses a fixed date valuation approach to achieve that underlying policy. For most purposes, that date is the separation date.

Ontario courts had been reluctant to look beyond the separation date by either valuing assets ‘in hindsight’ or considering a post-separation value in an application for an unequal division. They did so because of the desire for certainty in resolving cases.

In the Serra case:

  • the husband’s business was worth between 9 and 11 million dollars at separation.
  • At trial 7 years later his assets had declined in value so that his net worth was perhaps 2 million.
  • Nonetheless, the trial judge found that she had no authority under Ontario’s Family Law Act to order a lesser equalization payment. The trial court ordered the husband to pay his wife an equalization based on the value of his business at separation — twice as much as his net worth at trial.

The OCA has clarified that a non-fault, market driven decline in the value of equalized assets is sufficient for the courts to consider making an award for an unequal division of property.

In one part of the decision, the OCA suggests that a temporary market decline of shares or securities would not meet the test of unconscionability. However, does this apply to a spouse’s RRSP savings, especially where it is not uncommon to see a loss of value exceeding 30 percent in this market? These are expensive issues for spouses that separated in 2007 or earlier, but who are only now effecting equalization payments.

The Court of Appeal relied on section 5(6)(h) of the Family Law Act, which says:

5(6) The court may award a spouse an amount that is more or less than half the difference between the net family properties if the court is of the opinion that equalizing the net family properties would be unconscionable, having regard to…

(h) any other circumstance relating to the acquisition, disposition, preservation, maintenance or improvement of property. R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3, s. 5 (6).

Up until the Serra decision, the titled spouse was largely the insurer of the other party’s equalization claim in the face of market driven reductions. Now, market driven forces are “other circumstances” relating to the acquisition, disposition, preservation, maintenance or improvement of property.

In the face of declining markets, will the propertied spouse rush to make a transfer of assets vulnerable to reduction in value? Should he or she do so? The Family Law Act does not permit trial judges to make specific transfers of property in satisfaction of equalization payments.

Before making an order for an unequal division, a trial court must be of the opinion that an equalization will be “unconscionable”. The Court of Appeal noted the standard is more than simply “unfair”, “harsh”, or “unjust” alone but must “shock the conscience of the court”.

Of interest in the Serra decision:

  1. The Court’s ruling that unconscionability need not be based on fault based conduct;
  2. Despite the Court’s discussion of the absence in fault, it seemed to penalize the wife in her conduct of the litigation, and specifically the preservation orders and support orders obtained by her and which required the husband to hold on to his failing business to meet his obligations under the court orders;
  3. The OCA held that in fashioning an unequal division, the trial court should exercise its “normal discretion”, and not simply make an award that was shy of unconscionable; and
  4. yet the OCA gave very little insight about how it exercised its discretion when it declined to saddle the wife with the entire downside of the business decline.

The OCA really did not touch upon an interesting element of the trial. The fact that the husband had admitted the wife’s claim for a one-half interest in the business, that she subsequently withdrew on the eve of trial. Had the trial court allowed the admission, the wife would have been saddled with one-half of the decline in the business value, as she would have owned half of it.

Many practitioners feel there is enough in the Serra decision to allow litigants to pursue post-separation swings in the value of assets. Whether that will be applied to upswings in value will likely not be seen for years (given the recent market trends), and the extent to which trial judges will allow such claims is yet to be seen.

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