Vancouver lawyer making $57,000 a month wins reduction of payments to ex-wife
By NEAL HALL | Vancouver Sun – 22 hours ago
VANCOUVER - A Vancouver lawyer making $57,000 a month recently went to court and succeeded in having his payments reduced to his ex-wife.
The lawyer, identified only as C.D. in a B.C. Supreme Court judgment, had urged the court to reduce his monthly spousal support payments to $8,500 a month this year, to be stepped down over the next three years to $5,000 a month.
Until this month, he was paying $11,500 a month to his ex-wife, A.B., plus another $49,000 a year for the educational expenses of his two children.
Justice Susan Griffin decided a more appropriate payment was $10,000 a month for the next 10 years, when the matter can be reviewed.
The judge noted that the ex-wife, a former flight attendant, did not work during the 15-year marriage and stayed home to look after the couple's two children, allowing the lawyer to work long hours and become very successful.
When the couple married in 1990, the lawyer was making $50,000 a year in Ontario.
The couple decided to move to Vancouver in 1994, where the lawyer's career took off, allowing him to earn up to $800,000 a year.
During the last three years, the lawyer has made on average $684,000, which works out to $57,000 per month.
The husband argued his ex-wife was deliberately underemployed.
The wife took an interior design course and has won awards as a "home stager" - selecting furniture and furnishing to stage homes to make them sell quickly.
She hoped to earn $15,000 to $20,000 this year, the judge pointed out.
"Her actions are inconsistent with the suggestion that she has deliberately been underemployed," the judge observed this week in a written judgment.
The judge found the wife lived a modest lifestyle in a 1919 home in North Vancouver, compared to the lifestyle of the husband, who lives in West Vancouver, has another home in Qualicum Beach, has substantial retirement savings and is earning a large income that will allow him to continue to accumulate assets and savings.
"It is very unlikely she will ever achieve self-sufficiency to a degree that overcomes the economic disadvantages of marriage or approximates the advantages the husband gained from the marriage," the judge concluded.
The judge also noted that while she saw no reason information to justify hiding the litigants' names by reducing them to initials, the husband "strongly opposed" having his name made public.
The full judgment is online at: http://bit.ly/ykLDLR
nhall@vancouversun.com
Showing posts with label spousal support. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spousal support. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Spousal Support in Canada
Aug
Family Law’s Crapshoot: Is Canada Ready for Spousal Support Reform?
Posted August 20, 2011 by LawDiva in Divorce, Family Law. 2 Comments
Family law lawyers across Canada will tell you that the payment of spousal support or alimony (as it was once called) is still the most difficult issue to resolve between spouses.
Up until 2006 spousal support awards were notoriously inconsistent. The outcome of a spousal support case depended on what day it was heard, what judge heard the case, and who counsel were on the case. It was family law’s crapshoot.
In 2006 Canada’s Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (www.justice.gc.ca) were released, after the federal government empowered leading family law professors Carol Rogerson and Rollie Thompson to analyze and assess the nuances of spousal support and provide recommendations and guidelines that would help lawyers and judges determine who was entitled to support, how much should be paid and for how long it should be paid.
Today these Guidelines have the force of law, even though our legislators have never passed the Guidelines into law.
A calculation of spousal support under the Guidelines is based on the payor’s gross income (usually the husband) and the wife’s gross income, including common law spouses in most Provinces.
The general rule is that spouses who are entitled to support will receive it for a minimum of one half the length of the marriage and cohabitation and a maximum of all the years of the marriage or cohabitation.
So, if you were married or cohabited for ten years, you would receive support for a minimum of five years and a maximum of ten years. Herein lies one of the resolution dilemmas. Of course, husbands only want to pay for five years, while wives demand ten years of support.
The reality is, however, that judges in Canada are reluctant to make support orders that terminate on a fixed date, and routinely order that spousal support be “reviewed”, even though the Supreme Court of Canada in Leskun v. Leskun 2006 SCC 25 (www.scc.lexum.org) criticized the use of review orders.
A review of spousal support is an expensive process that entitles the recipient spouse to take a second crack at an indefinite spousal support order, as entitlement to support, amount of support and duration of support, are all up for grabs again.
For marriages twenty years or more, support is paid indefinitely, subject to a “material change in circumstances”, a legal test that rarely releases payor spouses from their support obligations.
Are Canadians supportive of the current alimony laws? While men’s rights groups criticize laws they say are unfair or prejudicial to them, the groundswell for the reform of alimony laws that is emerging in the United States has not yet crossed the border into Canada.
Most noteworthy are the reforms passed by the State of Massachusetts last month in their new Alimony Reform Act of 2011, (www.massalimonyreform.org) heralded as the end of lifetime alimony in that state. Should Canada’s spousal support laws also be amended to promote independence after divorce and fairness for both spouses?
In Massachusetts’ groundbreaking new law, the following reforms have been passed by the House and the Senate:
1. Spouses shall only receive support for 60% of the number of months of marriage. In Canada a spouse will be supported for between 50% and 100% of the months of marriage or cohabitation with many support orders being of an indefinite duration.
2. For marriages between ten and fifteen years, the maximum term for support is 70% of the months of marriage and for marriages between fifteen years and twenty years, the maximum length for alimony is 80%of the months of marriage. In Canada a marriage in excess of twenty years results in an “indefinite” award of support, a more polite term for “permanent” support.
3. A second wife’s income and assets are excluded. Frequently Canadian courts allow evidence of a new partner’s financial circumstances, particularly where the payor spouse’s income has been reduced.
4. Cohabitation with a new partner for a continuous period of three months suspends, reduces or terminates alimony. In Canada cohabitation will only result in a change in support payment if the recipient spouse lives with a wealthy partner who fully supports him/her. Try proving that.
5. For the purposes of an alimony order, the court shall exclude from its income calculation gross income the court has already considered for setting a child support order. In Canada child support is calculated first, and the amount of child support ordered can result in a decreased amount of spousal support, subject to an increase when the child support has decreased or terminated.
6. Alimony should not exceed the recipient’s need or 30% to 35% of the difference between the parties gross incomes. Canadian courts consider “need” but favour an equalization of income between spouses that reflects the marital standard of living.
7. A second job or overtime income shall be excluded from the income calculation where the spouse works more than a single full-time equivalent position or the second job or overtime commenced after the initial spousal support order. Canadian payors must pay support on all income, including, in some instances, pension income that has already been divided between the spouses.
8. A payor spouse’s payment of health insurance or life insurance for a recipient spouse shall reduce the payor’s support payments. These payments are rarely taken into account by Canadian courts.
9. Alimony extensions are limited and require clear and convincing evidence. Extensions of spousal support are the norm in Canada.
10. Alimony ends with the remarriage of the recipient. Not in Canada. A payor spouse has the onus of proving to the court that a recipient spouse no longer needs support.
Will there be a grassroots movement in Canada to rethink spousal support in light of the reforms south of the border? I think it’s inevitable. Laws that are paternalistic and punitive have no place in modern Canadian society, however, stay-at-home moms must maintain their elevated position, even in the face of spousal support reforms.
Lawdiva aka Georgialee Lang
Family Law’s Crapshoot: Is Canada Ready for Spousal Support Reform?
Posted August 20, 2011 by LawDiva in Divorce, Family Law. 2 Comments
Family law lawyers across Canada will tell you that the payment of spousal support or alimony (as it was once called) is still the most difficult issue to resolve between spouses.
Up until 2006 spousal support awards were notoriously inconsistent. The outcome of a spousal support case depended on what day it was heard, what judge heard the case, and who counsel were on the case. It was family law’s crapshoot.
In 2006 Canada’s Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines (www.justice.gc.ca) were released, after the federal government empowered leading family law professors Carol Rogerson and Rollie Thompson to analyze and assess the nuances of spousal support and provide recommendations and guidelines that would help lawyers and judges determine who was entitled to support, how much should be paid and for how long it should be paid.
Today these Guidelines have the force of law, even though our legislators have never passed the Guidelines into law.
A calculation of spousal support under the Guidelines is based on the payor’s gross income (usually the husband) and the wife’s gross income, including common law spouses in most Provinces.
The general rule is that spouses who are entitled to support will receive it for a minimum of one half the length of the marriage and cohabitation and a maximum of all the years of the marriage or cohabitation.
So, if you were married or cohabited for ten years, you would receive support for a minimum of five years and a maximum of ten years. Herein lies one of the resolution dilemmas. Of course, husbands only want to pay for five years, while wives demand ten years of support.
The reality is, however, that judges in Canada are reluctant to make support orders that terminate on a fixed date, and routinely order that spousal support be “reviewed”, even though the Supreme Court of Canada in Leskun v. Leskun 2006 SCC 25 (www.scc.lexum.org) criticized the use of review orders.
A review of spousal support is an expensive process that entitles the recipient spouse to take a second crack at an indefinite spousal support order, as entitlement to support, amount of support and duration of support, are all up for grabs again.
For marriages twenty years or more, support is paid indefinitely, subject to a “material change in circumstances”, a legal test that rarely releases payor spouses from their support obligations.
Are Canadians supportive of the current alimony laws? While men’s rights groups criticize laws they say are unfair or prejudicial to them, the groundswell for the reform of alimony laws that is emerging in the United States has not yet crossed the border into Canada.
Most noteworthy are the reforms passed by the State of Massachusetts last month in their new Alimony Reform Act of 2011, (www.massalimonyreform.org) heralded as the end of lifetime alimony in that state. Should Canada’s spousal support laws also be amended to promote independence after divorce and fairness for both spouses?
In Massachusetts’ groundbreaking new law, the following reforms have been passed by the House and the Senate:
1. Spouses shall only receive support for 60% of the number of months of marriage. In Canada a spouse will be supported for between 50% and 100% of the months of marriage or cohabitation with many support orders being of an indefinite duration.
2. For marriages between ten and fifteen years, the maximum term for support is 70% of the months of marriage and for marriages between fifteen years and twenty years, the maximum length for alimony is 80%of the months of marriage. In Canada a marriage in excess of twenty years results in an “indefinite” award of support, a more polite term for “permanent” support.
3. A second wife’s income and assets are excluded. Frequently Canadian courts allow evidence of a new partner’s financial circumstances, particularly where the payor spouse’s income has been reduced.
4. Cohabitation with a new partner for a continuous period of three months suspends, reduces or terminates alimony. In Canada cohabitation will only result in a change in support payment if the recipient spouse lives with a wealthy partner who fully supports him/her. Try proving that.
5. For the purposes of an alimony order, the court shall exclude from its income calculation gross income the court has already considered for setting a child support order. In Canada child support is calculated first, and the amount of child support ordered can result in a decreased amount of spousal support, subject to an increase when the child support has decreased or terminated.
6. Alimony should not exceed the recipient’s need or 30% to 35% of the difference between the parties gross incomes. Canadian courts consider “need” but favour an equalization of income between spouses that reflects the marital standard of living.
7. A second job or overtime income shall be excluded from the income calculation where the spouse works more than a single full-time equivalent position or the second job or overtime commenced after the initial spousal support order. Canadian payors must pay support on all income, including, in some instances, pension income that has already been divided between the spouses.
8. A payor spouse’s payment of health insurance or life insurance for a recipient spouse shall reduce the payor’s support payments. These payments are rarely taken into account by Canadian courts.
9. Alimony extensions are limited and require clear and convincing evidence. Extensions of spousal support are the norm in Canada.
10. Alimony ends with the remarriage of the recipient. Not in Canada. A payor spouse has the onus of proving to the court that a recipient spouse no longer needs support.
Will there be a grassroots movement in Canada to rethink spousal support in light of the reforms south of the border? I think it’s inevitable. Laws that are paternalistic and punitive have no place in modern Canadian society, however, stay-at-home moms must maintain their elevated position, even in the face of spousal support reforms.
Lawdiva aka Georgialee Lang
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