In recent age, there have many people you will get in our society who stay with their partner without marriage. In Canada, the rate is huge, and people are staying together without marriage. In other words, cohabitation is very conventional for a long time.
However, there have some restrictions, advantages, and at the same time, disadvantages of common law marriage. Anyways our today’s topic is when do you have to claim common law.
What is common law?
Before going to the main discussion, we should know some basic things about common law. Basically, the law is that kind of relationship, where you don’t need to be married for staying with your partner. You can spend a great life with your partner without any marriage certificate.
When Do You Have to Claim Common Law?
In Canada, one of every three couples is staying together without being married. However, you need to spend at least two years for being considered the common-law relationship. There have some requirements for common law marriage as follows:
You must live together
If you need to be considered a common-law couple, you have to live together for a specific time. The quantity of spending time with your partner is varied in different provinces—generally, it’s about two years in Canada.
You must have the legal right to stay
You must have the capacity to marry. That means you have to be at least 18, and your mental condition must be well.
You both must have the intension to marry
You must have the intention to marry your partner with whom you are living together.
You must have some behavior as being the married couple
You must show some behavior like using your partner’s last name with your name, introducing yourself as your partner’s wife or spouse, creating a joint bank account, etc.
Right in property:
According to Canada’s common law, when you are staying with someone for the above two years, you will have the right in his property after the separation. So, at that time, you should claim common law. For claiming that, you will get the proper division of the property of your partner.
Spousal support:
In the case of a common-law relationship, you have a lot of rights opportunities after the separation. Spousal support is one of them. After separation, if your financial condition is not-good-enough, you can get some assistance from your ex-partner by claiming common law.
The obligation for family debt:
If you have some debts at the time of staying together, you will get the opportunity to get 50% help from your partner. You just have to claim common law through a family lawyer, ex. common law manitoba
Child Support:
Child support is one of the most important issues after the separation of two people. If your child does not get any help from you or your wife, your child’s future will be ruined. At that time, you need to claim your common law to get child support from your partner.
Child custody:
According to the law, if you have any child in your common-law relationship, you will get a lot of assistance from your partner. The rate of child custody is affected a lot if you can claim the common law.
The Bottom Line
In Canada, there have some rules and regulations for common-law partners. If you can successfully maintain the Canadian government’s rules and regulations, you will get many advantages. So, we can say claiming common law can help you in many ways.
We have given you the perfect situations when do you have to claim common law. Hopefully, this article will be very beneficial to you in your case. If you have any further queries, you can ask in the comment section.
