“ezDivorce.ca“, “easydivorce.ca”, “uncontested.ca” and the ‘ez button’ logo are trademarks owned by Adam Slater, Barrister & Solicitor.
For the purposes of the following, ‘ ezDivorce‘ means Adam Slater, Barrister & Solicitor, and any other employee, agent, and/or owner of ezDivorce.ca, and includes “easydivorce.ca” and “uncontested.ca”.
The following terms and conditions are subject to change at any time and without notice.
Terms, Conditions and Disclaimers related to the Separation Agreement
Because of the significant legal consequences that it can have on many of your rights, responsibilities and obligations, both spouses are strongly urged to seek independent advice, including, but not limited to, legal, financial and tax advice, prior to executing a separation agreement.
The special offer of a free separation agreement applies only to ‘clean’ situations where there are no minor children, neither spouse will be paying spousal support to the other spouse and where all assets and debts have previously been divided.
The purchase of the ezDivorce separation agreement involves filling out a questionnaire that is designed to gather important information that should be covered by your agreement. You will also be asked if you want the agreement to cover anything else that was not covered by the intake questionnaire (and if so, to provide very specific details). You will not be provided with any advice whatsoever with respect to answering the questionnaire. If questions arise while you are filling out the form, you will be directed to various publicly available resources only. The purchase of the ezDivorce separation agreement assumes that both spouses have satisfied themselves that they are aware of their various rights, responsibilities and obligations and that they have carefully considered everything that they are agreeing to.
To avoid any problems (conflicts) that may arise between you and your spouse in the course of drafting your agreement, all communication and directions re what you want your agreement to include will only be accepted from the spouse initiating the actual purchase.
The finalized draft of the agreement is meant for each spouse to then take to separate lawyers for independent legal advice. You are not required by law in Ontario to do this however it would be a very good idea to do so. If your and/or your spouse’s lawyer want changes to be made to the agreement, just forward them to us and your agreement will be edited accordingly.
Know before you buy: In addition to the general terms and conditions set out at www.ezdivorce.ca/terms, the following disclaimer is attached to the separation agreement. If you are not comfortable with it, please do not purchase the agreement:
Neither ezDivorce nor Adam Slater is providing you with legal advice of any nature whatsoever. This separation agreement form was personalized based solely on information provided by you without any legal advice whatsoever from ezDivorce or Adam Slater.
Neither ezDivorce nor Adam Slater are engaged in rendering legal or other professional advice to you, and this form is not a substitute for the advice of your own lawyers, accountants and/or financial advisors. Both spouses are strongly urged to seek independent advice, including, but not limited to, legal, financial and tax advice, prior to executing the agreement.1 Neither ezDivorce nor Adam Slater makes any guarantee, warranty, assurance, promise, contract, etc. of any nature or kind whatsoever with respect to this Agreement.
Neither ezDivorce nor Adam Slater will be responsible in any manner for direct, indirect, special or consequential damages caused in any way as the result of your purchase and use of this separation agreement.
{Where applicable:} CHILD SUPPORT: The parties should be aware that agreements with respect to child custody, access and/or support are never ‘final’ in Ontario. Either party can apply to the court in the future to change such provisions of this Agreement.
{Where applicable:} NOTE: Per your request, this draft contains language whereby the parties agree to waive all rights to receive spousal support from each other. According to Section 33(4) of the Family Law Act, a court may set aside a waiver of the right to support in a domestic contract despite an express provision excluding the application of Section 33(4) if the waiver of the right to support results in ‘unconscionable circumstances’ or if the waiver is by or on behalf of a dependent who qualifies for an allowance for support out of public money. ‘Unconscionable circumstances’ is not defined and would be determined on a case-by-case basis.
Section 56 of the Family Law Act provides that a domestic contract, or parts thereof, may be set aside in certain situations:
Provisions that may be set aside or disregarded:
Contracts subject to best interests of child
- (1) In the determination of a matter respecting the education, moral training or custody of or access to a child, the court may disregard any provision of a domestic contract pertaining to the matter where, in the opinion of the court, to do so is in the best interests of the child.
Contracts subject to child support guidelines
(1.1) In the determination of a matter respecting the support of a child, the court may disregard any provision of a domestic contract… pertaining to the matter where the provision is unreasonable having regard to the child support guidelines, as well as to any other provision relating to support of the child in the contract….
…
Setting aside domestic contract
(4) A court may, on application, set aside a domestic contract or a provision in it,
(a) if a party failed to disclose to the other significant assets, or significant debts or
other liabilities, existing when the domestic contract was made2;
(b) if a party did not understand the nature or consequences of the domestic
contract; or
(c) otherwise in accordance with the law of contract.
…
Application of subss. (4, 5, 6)
(7) Subsections (4), (5) and (6) apply despite any agreement to the contrary.
Footnotes:
- In some jurisdictions (not Ontario), independent legal advice is required to make a domestic contract legally binding. In Ontario, whether a court will overturn or disregard a properly executed domestic contract because one or both of the parties did not have independent legal advice is decided on a case-by-case basis. In some cases, the lack of independent legal advice for one of the parties, although not a statutory requirement, may be sufficient to constitute undue influence, and so be a reason to set aside the contract. There is no presumption of undue influence between spouses and unconscionability requires taking advantage of vulnerability to take a grossly unfair bargain.
- Both parties are highly encouraged to complete and exchange Ontario Family Law Rules Form 13.1 “Financial Statement”. While failure to do this does not, in and of itself, render a separation agreement void, it can be, like lack of independent legal advice, a factor that the court looks to in deciding whether or not to ignore the provisions of a separation agreement.
WITNESSES: Your agreement must be signed with witnesses. However, we do NOT* act as or provide a witness for the agreement – nor do we “notarize” your signed agreement. For a contract to be considered a ‘domestic contract’ under the Ontario Family Law Act, it must be writing, signed by the parties and witnessed. There is no requirement regarding who can act as the witness, other than it must be a ‘competent’ adult: It can be a friend or family member – it does not have to be a lawyer or notary although some people are more comfortable with those types of witnesses. (*NEW: If you are unable to arrange to have your agreement witnessed, or otherwise want ezDivorce to do so, we can do so for a fee of $100 + hst (includes preparing the agreement for each of you to sign digitally and then confirming the signatures online using Zoom).)
If you are reviewing this disclaimer (either for the first time or otherwise) after ordering the agreement and you are now feeling uncomfortable about it, just do not submit the intake form. No fees are charged until the form is submitted and the draft agreement is prepared. The fee that you will pay is allocated entirely to the first draft. Minor changes and/or edits are provided at no additional cost. Thus, the fee is non-refundable after the agreement has been drafted using the answers and information you supplied on the intake form.
Revised 17 October 2023