Recent Case: Imputing Income Beyond the Minimum Wage

Osanebi v. Osanebi 2023 ONSC 2546  This is an endorsement based on an application for an uncontested trial.  The mother in this case sought the following relief: a divorce, decision-making responsibility for her two children and child support. The mother and father were married for 6 years before they separated. The father relocated to Nigeria and has not been involved in the children’s lives…

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Recent Case: Retroactive Child Support and Imputing Income

Ogunware v Ganiyu, 2022 ONSC 5254 This is a trial court decision where the issues before the court were whether the father should pay retroactive child support to the mother to the date of separation and whether an income of $100,000 should be imputed to the father for child support. The mother and father began…

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Recent case: Job loss during the pandemic and child support

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Moreton v Inthavixay 2020 ONSC 4881: This decision relates to the father’s request to reduce the amount of child support he was to pay because he lost his job due to the pandemic. However, it is also the most recent episode in a family law dispute that has been in litigation for three years, with…

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Recent case: When to impute income

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Lavie v. Lavie, 2018 ONCA 10: The appellant father appealed a 2015 trial decision, raising more than 20 grounds, including the trial judge’s imputation of income to him but not to the respondent mother. The parties began living together in 1998, married in 2000 and separated in 2009. They have two teenage children. Following separation,…

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Case law: Child support variation for adult children

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Colucci v. Colucci, 2017 ONCA 892: This Court of Appeal decision established that the court has jurisdiction to vary child support under s.17 of the Divorce Act even after the children are over the age of 18 and therefore no longer considered ‘children of the marriage’ as defined in s.2(1) Divorce Act. The appellant father…

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What is the Family Responsibility Office?

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The Family Responsibility Office (FRO) is part of Ontario’s Ministry of Community and Social Services. It is responsible for collecting and distributing child and spousal support orders. Where the person paying the support is not doing so, FRO can take steps to enforce payment. How does FRO become involved? Your support order – child, spousal…

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Recent cases: Incarceration for non-payment of support

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Two recent cases – one dealing with child support and the other with spousal support – explore the appropriateness of incarcerating a payor who is in considerable arrears. In Ontario (Family Responsibility Office v Arruda, 2014 ONCJ 455, Mr Arruda is almost $200,000 in arrears on his child support payments. FRO sought an order requiring…

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