Warning

The file is a cohabitation agreement and a wedding is booked

Marriage usually moves the couple onto a different default statute. Classify the current writing against the unmarried pack, then ask counsel about a marriage contract.

Two instruments

If the parties are not yet married, the live pack is the cohabitation track for their province. British Columbia may already treat them as spouses for family property. Ontario generally will not equalize. Québec de facto spouses are outside family patrimony.

Changing the title to prenup the week before the wedding does not complete Québec notarial form or Ontario marriage-contract witnessing.

timingstatute

Family Law Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3, ss. 53, 55, 56(4)

Timing around cohabitation or a later wedding

A cohabitation agreement signed years into a relationship, or a 'prenup' signed while unmarried just before a wedding, raises classification and transition questions. Marriage usually moves the couple onto the marriage-contract / marital-property statute.

  • If the parties later marry, a cohabitation agreement does not automatically become a marriage contract unless this province’s statute and the document’s form actually support that continuation.
propertystatute

Family Law Act, S.B.C. 2011, c. 25, ss. 3, 81, 92–93

Default property position if unmarried

s. 3 treats as spouses persons who are married or who have lived in a marriage-like relationship for a continuous period of at least two years, or who have lived in a marriage-like relationship and have a child together. Unmarried spouses can have Part 5 property claims. That is not Ontario and not Québec.

  • Do not assume the couple is already in a spouse-like property statute. Read this province’s trigger.
  • Do not analyze BC using Ontario FLA Part I or Québec family patrimony.
propertystatute

Civil Code of Québec, CQLR c. CCQ-1991 (de facto unions; no family patrimony)

Default property position if unmarried

De facto spouses do not enter family patrimony by cohabiting. Property follows title, ordinary contract, and unjust-enrichment ideas a lawyer may assess—not the married spouses’ family patrimony.

  • Do not assume the couple is already in a spouse-like property statute. Read this province’s trigger.
  • Do not apply Ontario FLA equalization, British Columbia FLA unmarried-spouse property, or U.S. UPAA formalities to Québec. French and English versions of the Code are official; this pack cites the English LégisQuébec text.