General

Pension Division under the Pension Benefits Act

Under the Family Law Act ‘property’ or ‘net family property’ includes all an individual’s property including his or her pension. The significance of this is that at the time of separation or divorce the pension is included for the purposes of equalization or division of property. It does not mean that there can be an automatic transfer of part of one spouse pension to the other spouse. Under the Pensions Benefits Act a spouse’s pension will be divided if the Court orders a division and transfer of a portion to the other spouse or if the parties enter into a domestic contract which provides for division of the pension and the transfer of a portion of that pension to the …

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Providing for Dependants after death

Providing for Dependants after death
To a large extent a testator has testamentary freedom to leave his assets for whomever he or she wishes to leave them for. There are instances where because someone has not been made a beneficiary under a testator’s will this can create hardship especially where that person was being taken care of by the testator prior to his or her death.
Even in cases where a will was not made and the individual dies intestate the beneficiaries under the laws of intestacy may not include some persons who have been dependants of the deceased. This can happen in instances of common law union where the common law spouse is not a spouse for the purposes of intestacy. …

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