Free BC Family Law Tools

You are not legally required to hire a lawyer to separate in BC, but you should get independent legal advice before signing any separation agreement. Under BC's Family Law Act (s.93), a separation agreement can be set aside where a spouse didn't get a fair chance to understand what they were signing — the most common grounds are failure to disclose significant financial information, or significant unfairness at signing. Independent legal advice isn't strictly required, but it's a factor the court weighs, and agreements signed with ILA on both sides are much harder to challenge. The calculators on this site are designed to help you enter negotiations informed, not to replace a lawyer when the final paperwork is being drafted.

Separation happens the moment one spouse decides the relationship is over and communicates that — it doesn't require a court order or any paperwork. Divorce, on the other hand, is a formal court order that legally ends a marriage, and only married spouses can divorce. Under the federal Divorce Act, a divorce can be granted on three grounds: one year of separation, adultery, or physical or mental cruelty. The one-year-separation ground is the most commonly used because it is no-fault and doesn't require proving anything beyond the passage of time. Common-law couples don't divorce; they simply separate.

There's no fixed timeline. Day-one separation is immediate. Negotiating a separation agreement typically takes anywhere from a few weeks (uncontested, amicable) to many months (contested finances or parenting). A divorce order, if you're married, is a separate step — most couples use the one-year-separation ground under the Divorce Act, though divorces based on adultery or cruelty can be granted sooner. The time-consuming pieces of separation — financial disclosure, parenting schedules, property valuation — can be started right away regardless of how long a divorce takes.

Yes. Child support is based on parentage, not marital status — if you have a child together, child support is owed under the Federal Child Support Guidelines whether or not you were ever common-law. Spousal support is different: under BC's Family Law Act, an unmarried partner can claim spousal support only if they lived in a marriage-like relationship for at least two continuous years, or had a child together while in a marriage-like relationship.

Yes. The Child Support Calculator and Spousal Support Calculator are fully free, require no account, and do not store or transmit your financial data — all calculations run in your browser. The site is maintained by a practicing BC family law firm and supported as a public resource.