Digest: Stanford v Stanford, 2018 SKQB 221

• Date: August 18, 2019

Reported as: 2018 SKQB 221

Docket Number: DIV 214/16 JCS , QB18220

Court: Court of Queen's Bench

Date: 2019-08-18

Judges:

• Wilkinson

Subjects:

• Family Law � Division of Family Property � Exemptions
• Family Law � Division of Family Property � Unequal Division � Express Trust
• Family Law � Division of Family Property � Unequal Division � Marriage of Short Duration
• Family Law � Spousal Support � Compensatory � Non-compensatory

Digest: The parties began cohabiting in 1999, got married in 2001 and separated in 2003. The respondent owned seven quarters of land at the time of the marriage and the petitioner did not bring any assets into the marriage. When the parties started their relationship, the petitioner was living on social assistance and family allowance payments. The petitioner and her youngest three children moved to the respondent�s farm. The parties lived in an old farmhouse on the respondent�s home quarter from seeding to harvest and they lived in town in a property owned by M., the respondent�s former common law spouse, in the winter. The respondent and M. had a relationship between 1980 and 1999. In 1985, M. borrowed $90,000 from her father to invest in the respondent�s farming operation. The respondent and M. also signed a handwritten agreement in 1985 indicating that M. was paying the respondent $90,000 for half of the farm and they would share in any eventual sale proceeds. After their separation, M. and the respondent executed a document expressed as a mortgage in the seven quarters of land for $500,000 in M.�s favour with no money payable until a sale agreement for the land was entered into. The petitioner brought the action for divorce, spousal support, and equal division of family property 13 years after separation, when the respondent sold the seven quarters of farmland. At the time of their marriage, the home quarter was valued at $43,750 and the remaining six quarters of land had a value of $277,380. In 2016, the respondent sold five quarters for $512,304.83 and the remaining two quarters for net proceeds of $277,824.89. The issues at trial were: 1) whether M. had a valid interest in the sale proceeds and whether the respondent could exclude M.�s interest from the family property available for distribution with the petitioner; 2) whether M.�s unregistered interest was invalid by virtue of s. 25 of The Land Titles Act, 2000; 3) identification of the parties� family home; 4) whether there were...