mcphail-sharing a life.pdf - Robson Hall Faculty of Law

120 MANITOBA LAW JOURNAL VOL 31 NO 1
The Marital Property Act
• Changes the title of the Act from The Marital Property Act to The Family
Property.
• Adds a gender neutral definition of common-law partner of a person which
means another person who, with the person, registered a common-law
relationship under The Vital Statistics Act or, unless the parties separated
before the amendments come into force, another person who, not being
married to the person, cohabited with him or her in a conjugal relationship
for a period of at least three years commencing either before or after 30 June
2004, the date of the coming into force of the definition.
• Adds common-law partners into the provisions that allow spouses to apply for
an accounting and equalization of their assets and to other relief under the
Act. To qualify as common-law partners, persons must have either registered
their common-law relationship under The Vital Statistics Act or, unless they
had already separated when the amendments come into force, have cohabited
in a conjugal relationship for at least three years commencing either before or
after the amendments come into force.
• Defines common-law relationship agreements to parallel spousal agreements.
• Changes the term marital home to family home.
• Clarifies that where a party is not entitled to any benefit under this Act
because they know their marriage is void, the disentitlement is to any benefit
as a spouse.
• Adds a new Division 1.1 dealing with the application of the Act to commonlaw
partners. This new division sets out parallel rules for common-law
partners with respect to their habitual residence. The new division also
provides that the sections of the Act dealing with accounting and
equalization of assets during the lives of the partners (as opposed to Part IV,
accounting and equalization on death) do not apply to common-law partners
who cohabited before 30 June 2004 but who had already separated as of that
date, unless they resume cohabitation thereafter and either register their
relationship under The Vital Statistics Act or continue to cohabit for at least
90 days thereafter.
• Currently, assets acquired before marriage are generally exempted from the
application of the Act. The current exception to this rule is for assets
acquired in contemplation of marriage. This is extended to assets acquired in
contemplation of cohabitation and to assets acquired by spouses during a
period of cohabitation immediately before marriage. Thus, if parties live
together and then marry without any intervening period of separation, assets
from the entirety of their cohabitation will be considered for the purpose of
any accounting and equalization. Spouses who had already separated before
these changes come into force will not be governed by this particular
provision and they will continue to be governed by the previous rule.