Common-law relationships

Parents who are separated or divorced must financially support their children, even, in some circumstances, after those children become adults (at 19). Children are entitled to be supported by their parents if they are under 19, or if they are 19 or over, but unable to support themselves because of illness, disability, or some other reason, such as going to school full-time. For more detailed information, see our fact sheet about when child support ends.

Yes — one of the documents they ask for is a "Declaration of severance." It's probably enough to submit a letter saying that your relationship with your former partner ended as of a certain date, and that you've not tried to reconcile (get back together). Be sure to sign the letter.

However, if you want to make completely sure that the immigration office is satisfied, you can hire a notary public to write up a Statutory Declaration for you with the same information. You then swear to the truth of the declaration in front of the notary public, who puts his or her seal on the document.

No, you aren't married, but after one or two years, you have a lot of the same rights as a married couple would.

You can't "become" married by default — you have to actively go and get married for the law to treat you and your partner exactly as it would a married couple. But when it comes to matters such as health insurance, government benefits (including retirement), and inheritance, you could be treated like married spouses. Generally, it takes two years together before this is the case, but many benefits are available after just one year of living together, or have no minimum requirements.

Similarly, if your relationship breaks up, the courts could treat you like a married couple in some ways, especially if you lived together for at least two years. However, it's a lot more complicated for unmarried partners to settle their financial issues when a relationship ends. For that reason, it's best to write up and sign an agreement before you start living together that says who will get what if you break up. (This is particularly true if you're paying toward the mortgage but your name isn't on the house, or if you think you would need spousal or child support if you and your partner broke up.)

For more information, speak to a lawyer or see Living Together or Living Apart: Common-Law Relationships, Marriage, Separation, and Divorce.

You'll probably want to seek legal advice when it comes to a question of this sort. Although we can't give you legal advice through this website, we can point you to several legal information sites, as well as some legal advice resources that you might find useful.

Our publication Living Together or Living Apart: Common-Law Relationships, Marriage, Separation, and Divorce contains a discussion of division of property for common-law couples (see Chapter 5).

See also our fact sheet on property issues and common-law relationships.

JP Boyd's family law website contains a section about common-law relationships, with examples of property questions.

To find out where you can go for legal advice, see Who can help? for information about various services, including the Lawyer Referral Service.

I'm representing myself and I have found there are terms that I can't find a clear and concise definition of. For example, costs. This is a minefield for the lay person! What costs? The costs of appearing in court? The costs paid to the lawyer to date? If it's a total of all legal costs, then how is it broken down?

In the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal, "costs" refers to a court order that says that the losing party in a lawsuit must pay the legal expenses of the successful party. See our fact sheet about costs for more detailed information about how costs are calculated.

If you don't have an address for your separated spouse, you need to try and locate him or her. See the resources on JP Boyd's BC Family Law Resource (scroll down to "Starting an Action" and read the section called "find my ex?").

If you've tried our suggestions (above) for finding an address for your separated spouse but haven't succeeded, you could apply to the court for an Order for substituted service. See our self-help guide on how to arrange for alternative service. See also the resources on JP Boyd's BC Family Law Resource (scroll down to "Starting an Action" and read the section called "substitutionally serve someone with legal documents?") for some suggestions on how to proceed.

Generally, no. If your spouse no longer lives in BC, you'll have to apply in Supreme Court, not Provincial Court. This is because Provincial Court applications can't be validly served on a person outside BC. One exception to this rule is for applications to get or change an order for support. The Interjurisdictional Support Orders Act allows you to apply in Provincial Court if your spouse is outside of BC (or if the order you want to change was made in Provincial Court).

Generally, you must serve documents on a spouse who lives outside BC the same way you would serve a spouse within BC. This is true whether your separated spouse lives in another Canadian province or territory, or in another country. See our self-help guide on how to serve Supreme Court documents outside BC ( instructions for the person serving your documents available as a PDF in English; see the Quick link at the right-hand side of the screen).

You can ask a friend or family member who lives near your spouse to personally serve documents for you, or you can hire a professional process server to serve the documents on your spouse for you. Or, if your separated spouse lives in a country that has signed the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters, you could choose to have the documents served on your separated spouse by following the procedures set out in that Convention.

If you want to hire a process server to serve the documents personally on your separated spouse, you can try to locate process serving companies where he or she lives using either the local yellow pages or the Internet. The fact that you've not seen your spouse in many years doesn't affect the requirements for serving documents.

I originally served my wife with the Notice of Family Claim (Form F3) (or a Writ of Summons and Statement of Claim under the old rules) nine months ago, but did not take the next step of having an Affidavit of Service completed and filed with the court registry. This was because serving my wife with the court documents led to new discussions about trying to save our marriage. We've since agreed to move ahead with the divorce, but now I no longer have three copies of the Notice of Family Claim (or Writ of Summons and Statement of Claim). Is the original service still valid, nine months later, or do I have to re-serve the documents? If I have to re-serve the documents, will the court registry give me copies of the documents I already filed, so that I can have them served on my wife? Or must I start from scratch, re-file everything, and pay the full amount again?

A Notice of Family Claim (Form F3) remains effective for 12 months. This means you can continue with your divorce application process because you had the Notice of Family Claim served within that 12-month period. You can apply to renew the Notice of Family Claim if it's not served on the other party within the 12-month period.

Your next step is to have the person who served the documents on your wife complete an Affidavit of Personal Service (Form F16). See our self-help guide on how to serve Supreme Court documents by personal service.

If the person who served the court documents on your wife is no longer available to swear an Affidavit of Personal Service (Form F16), you must have someone else re-serve the court documents on your wife. You can have the court documents re-served so long as this happens within 12 months of the date the Notice of Family Claim was filed with the court registry. The new server must then complete an Affidavit of Personal Service (Form F16). If you need additional copies of the documents that you filed with the court, contact the court registry.

If the Notice of Family Claim hasn't been served within 12 months of the date it was filed with the court registry, an applicant has two options. He or she can either:

• file a new Notice of Family Claim with the court registry (and pay another filing fee) or
• make a separate application to the Supreme Court to have the Notice of Family Claim renewed for another year, and then serve the renewed documents (this is a much cheaper option).

To get help, see the services listed in Who can help?

I intend to apply to the Supreme Court to change a final divorce order made more than three years ago. Do I need to serve a Notice of Intention to Proceed (Form F48) before serving a Notice of Application (Form F31)? I searched for this form, but I can't find it. Is there such a form or do I simply write a letter stating my notice of intention to proceed and serve it on the other party?

You don't need to serve a Notice of Intention to Proceed if you have a final order, even if a number of years have passed. You do have to have your Notice of Application (Form F31) served personally on the other party.

If a final order hasn't yet been made and you're proceeding more than one year after you first started, you must complete and serve a Notice of Intention to Proceed (Form F48) on the other party. This is a Supreme Court form that you can use. See our self-help guide called How to use a Supreme Court Notice of Intention to Proceed (Form F48) for links to a blank form, and information about when to use it, and how to fill it out and serve it on the other party.

Form F30 is also called an Affidavit. You can find it either on the Court Services Branch forms page or on our Court forms page, listed under Affidavit.