What happens in Vegas … doesn’t always stay in Vegas!

A few years ago, a lovely young man contacted me in a bit of a bind.  He was engaged to the girl of his dreams and planning a big wedding.  Only problem was that he had already gotten married in Vegas to a friend of his a few years prior!

He called me to find out if the Vegas marriage was valid – since they were drunk and never lived together afterwards – because he really didn’t want to have to break the news to his fiancé that he was already “kinda” married.

After asking him a few questions and establishing that he did in fact get legally married in Vegas, it became clear that the hard reality was that his marriage to his friend in Vegas was considered a valid marriage in Canada.  I wish I could have told the young man something different, but – whether or not it is Elvis, the captain of a ship, or a person who was ordained over the internet – if they are qualified to perform marriages in the location you are getting married in …. You. Are. Married.

Some countries require the marriage to be registered in their jurisdiction in order for the marriage to be recognized in their jurisdiction.  Canada is not one of these jurisdictions.  A marriage is recognized as long as you meet the requirements of the jurisdiction in which you got married … and unfortunately dumb and drunk are not bars to marriage in Vegas … or so I’ve been told.

Because he had married his friend but never lived with her (or consummated the marriage according to him) our unfortunate friend would have been able to have the marriage annulled if he had made an application within a small window of time.  However it had been well over two years by the time he contacted us, so annulment was not an option.

In these situations, we can complete a quick divorce for you, provided you have a marriage certificate and you can still locate your “spouse”.  These types of divorces are usually uncontested and called “desk order divorces” because everything is done by filing paperwork as opposed to appearing in court.

If you have a divorce where there are no outstanding issues other than getting a divorce, you can obtain one of these divorces.  The process takes about 3 – 6 months and we usually charge a flat fee for them based on whether or not there are children of the relationship.  If you find yourself in a situation like the one I mentioned above, or just want to finalize your divorce and there are no other issues to deal with – call us to discuss how we can help you obtain a desk order divorce.

Oh … and one more thing … after you get one of these divorces … you are really divorced too.  So if you plan on remarrying – you need to disclose this divorce on your next  application for a marriage licence.

Paule Seeger B.A. LLB

The Family Law Act.

As many of you are aware,  new family legislation has come into effect in British Columbia.  The Family Law Act came into force on March 18, 2013 and replaces our old Family Relations Act.  It is not a complete overhaul of everything but rather different levels of changes to various traditional issues to bring the legislation in line with our current reality.  As well, the Family Law Act has legislated aspects of our family practice that were not included in the Family Relations Act – such as definition of family debt (yes, until March 18, 2013, our family law legislation had NO definition for family debt!).

I am going to briefly touch on the changes, provide a quick rundown on the three major themes of this new legislation and then address some myths that have arisen from the new legislation.  I will get deeper into various issues in my future blogs – so if there is something you really want to hear about – speak up!

The FLA, as we affectionately call this new law, makes small changes to issues like child support and jurisdictional overlap of the Supreme court and Provincial Court.  The areas where there are big changes, even a brand new approach, are in the care of children and the division of property.  And, as stated above, the FLA has legislated concepts that we have used in our everyday practice, but weren’t included in the legislation until now – like dealing with family debt and the use of parenting co-ordinators.

There are three major themes arising from the FLA:

1.       There is an emphasis on and better support for out of court resolution.  Basically, all the parties involved in creating this act recognized what most of us already know – most family matters are best dealt with out of court.  When you are dealing with matters that are so very personal to you, the best result will often be one that you and your ex craft yourselves.  A judge knows very little about your life and is put in a position to make life changing decisions based on a limited time and limited information.

2.       There is also a change in how matters that are litigated are controlled. So if court is necessary – which it sometimes is – there are enhanced processes put in place that help the court to manage the process and the litigants.  While we have moved away from this idea of last minute applications served on the other side on a Friday night for court on Monday, the FLA gives the court even more discretion in how to handle litigants once they decide to use the court processes.

3.       Finally, and I – like many of my colleagues – really like this one, when there is a dispute involving children, the FLA has moved the focus from the rights and priorities of the parties onto the rights and priorities of the children.  This new legislation takes a very child centered approach, and hopefully will help parents to keep in the forefront of their minds that, while they may have every right to divorce each other, they have no right to use the children as weapons in the battle.

Since the FLA has come into effect, I have heard some “myths” about the legislation, some a number of times.  I’m not sure where they are coming from … but they are not true … here are three common ones:

1.       The FLA shortens the amount of time a party must live together from 2 years to 3 months in order to be considered “common law”.

The definition of a spouse is found in section 3 of the FLA and includes a person that is married to another person or who has lived with another person in a marriage like relationship continuously for a period of at least 2 years.  So still the two year test in order to be considered common law.

There is one exception to this definition and that is when a person lives with another person and has a child with that person.  They don’t have to meet the 2 year requirement.  However this definition of spouse is limited specifically to the sections dealing with children and support.

2.       You have to wait for 2 years after the FLA comes into force (so March 18, 2015) in order to have the sections on property division apply.

The FLA came into effect as of March 18, 2013.  After March 18, 2013 all aspects of the FLA became our law in British Columbia.  Any split taking place after March 18, 2013 is dealt with under the FLA.

For court actions that commenced prior to March 18, 2013 and were still ongoing – there were transition provisions to deal with this, but basically, everything other than property division became subject to the FLA as of March 18, 2013.  The only issue in these cases that would be dealt with under the FRA was property division.

3.       You have to be married to have the rights under the FLA.

Not true. The definition of spouse under the FLA has been expanded to include common law couples of 2 years for all purposes under the FLA and common law couples of less than 2 years if they have had a child together for other purposes such as child support and care of the child.

Hopefully that provides some food for thought.  If there are other myths about the FLA that you have heard about and want debunked, let us know and we will see what we can do.

Paule Seeger BA LLB

Summer time travel with your kids – Make sure you have consent!

Well everyone summer is officially upon us! Kids are out of school and free from their usual routines and many of us are taking to the sky’s and roads for some much needed vacation time!

If you and your ex are sharing custody it’s time to make sure that you have your summer parenting time schedule in place and any consents to travel signed and ready to go. Customs officers are putting heavy importance on making sure that children aren’t entering and leaving the country without the consent of both parents these days. The last thing you would want is your family vacation to be spoiled by such an avoidable circumstance!

Paule Seeger B.A. LLB

How social media effects you and your case.

Ok everybody listen up!

We all use social media so much today that we forget that it is written documentation.  We send texts indiscriminately, we update our FB pages without considering who is seeing them, we send our boyfriends or girlfriends compromising photos of ourselves and we still seem to believe that all of this is private.  Guess what? It’s really, really isn’t!

I can’t count how many family files I have that have reams of text messages between the two warring parties. Things said in anger or in jest are raised from the dead and entered as evidence of a person’s bad parenting / anger and general bad attitude.  We need to be more cognizant, especially when dealing with an estranged spouse that these texts can AND WILL be used against us.  So think twice before drunk texting – stick to good old fashioned drunk dialing, at least those conversations are still somewhat private.

I have also seen situations where one party swears up and down that little “Johnny” wasn’t driving in their car without a seatbelt / driving on a quad bike that wasn’t age appropriate, or doing other activities that are unsafe – only to then see many pictures pulled from their FB page of little “Johnny” doing exactly that!  Now the client has double trouble – little “Johnny” is obviously engaging in unsafe activities which is bad enough, but now the client is also categorically lying ….

And the proof is there in the photos!!

So the next time the client swears up and down about something, what is the likelihood that he (or she) will be trusted? Slim to none unfortunately.  So save all those photos for your personal use or do a giant upload much, much later when your family law file is a distant memory.

Finally, remember the naughty photo sent in the early stages of a new relationship when we feel loved up and all sexy?  Remember, those photos don’t always end up where they should end up.  The last thing you want is a naughty photo of yourself or your new partner being entered into evidence to attack your credibility in a situation where the relationship possibly started earlier than you want to admit to.

The basic rule is “don’t do something that you wouldn’t want the world knowing about”, but since we are all human and therefore do things we aren’t always proud of – don’t post them, talk about them or send them via social media.

It’s called social because LOTS of people have access to it!!

Paule Seeger, B.A. LLB

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