Who Gets The Family Cottage in Your Separation or Divorce?
Like many spouses getting separated or divorced, you probably want to keep your cottage if you can.
Who doesn’t want to keep their cottage when it’s full of great memories and happy times?
I will discuss the issue of what happens to the family cottage in your separation or divorce in this video.
Hi, my name is Thomas O’Malley. I’m an experienced family lawyer in Durham Region and the GTA.
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Your cottage is most likely considered a second matrimonial home under the Ontario Family Law Act.
You are allowed to have several “matrimonial homes” under Ontario family law when you and your family spend time at cottage on a regular basis.
If you received the cottage as a gift or inheritance prior to your marriage or during your marriage, you cannot exclude its value in the property division since the cottage is designated as a matrimonial home.
In other words, when a residence is designated as a “matrimonial home”, you cannot exclude its value which you can normally do when you receive a gift or inheritance before or during your marriage.
As well, both you and your spouse have an equal right of possession of your cottage even after you are separated.
In short, neither spouse can demand that the other spouse to leave the residence on a permanent basis. The cottage also cannot be sold without the consent of both spouses even if only one spouse is on title to the property.
Hopefully, if you owned a cottage before you were married, you had an experienced family lawyer draft a prenuptial agreement in which the value of the cottage is excluded from the owner’s property division or property calculation. Then you would have no worries about your cottage.
I will more key advice about how to deal with your cottage in your separation or divorce in the next video.
If you have any questions about your separation, divorce or family law case and you would like our help, feel free to contact on my Facebook law office page, that’s O’Malley Family Law, or call me at 905-434-8837 and I’ll point in you in the right direction.
Click here to join my free Facebook GTA and Durham Region separation and divorce support group: GTA and Durham Region Separation and Divorce Support Group
Please make sure to share this important information and video with your friends, family members and co-workers so that it helps more people avoid serious problems in their separation or divorce before it’s too late.
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