Matrimonial Property

• Author: Julien D. Payne/Marilyn A. Payne
• Pages: 217-218

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Matrimonial Property

In 1973, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that a wife who had worked

alongside her husband in the elds was not entitled to any interest in the

ranch that had been originally purchased with his money. Her homemaking

role and hard physical labour on the farm counted for nothing. A few years

later, the Supreme Court of Canada saw the error of its ways and invoked the

doctrine of unjust enrichment to enable wives and unmarried cohabitants

to share in property acquired, maintained, or preserved by their partners

during cohabitation. Currently, every province and territory in Canada has

enacted legislation to establish property-sharing rights between married

couples on marriage breakdown or divorce and, in some provinces, on death.

Three fundamental questions require consideration in any attempt to

divide property between spouses on the termination of their relationship.

They are as follows:

1) What kind of property falls subject to division?

2) How is the property to be valued?

3) How will the sharing of property be achieved?

In most provinces and territories, the courts are empowered to divide

specic assets. In Ontario, it is the value of the property, as distinct from

the property itself, that is shared; all assets must be valued, and, subject to

designated exceptions, each spouse is presumptively entitled to an equal

share in the value of the assets acquired by either or both of them during

matrimonial cohabitation.