If you want to negotiate your child support or custody agreement, the best outcome is always a negotiation reflected in a Separation Agreement. You don’t want a Judge deciding issues for you regarding your children. And, your best chance for agreement is to know how to effectively negotiate with your spouse. Be prepared for reasonable compromise. If you insist upon standing on principle, be prepared to pay your lawyer for it.

To get you started on the right negotiating path you should do as much research as possible. You can find information online and there are also books on these issues, like “Separating from Your Spouse 101″. That way, you’ll know what you’re talking about and how to talk to get to a fair agreement.

For now, take note of these 5 Mistakes to Avoid When Negotiating:

1. Thinking logic will prevail. Negotiating is about human behaviour and emotion (especially when it’s about your children). You need to be able to navigate through both your emotions and your spouse’s.

2. Taking a “No” personally. When you your spouse says “No” to your proposal, don’t take it as a personal rejection. Look at it as an invitation to keep talking.

3. Withholding information. Give your spouse all the information and documents needed to prepare for your negotiations. You want your meeting to be of value and without proper information about income and child-related expenses; your spouse will not be able to make a decision.

4. Talking too much. You should be doing the asking, not the answering. Ask your spouse open-ended questions to identify their concerns. The 5 W’s (Who, What, Where, When and Why) are the type of questions that work best. The more you learn about your spouse’s concerns, the better you will be able to address them during your negotiation.

5. Not having a goal. You’ve heard this before. If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to get there? You also better know why you’re going to wherever you’re going. If you’re going to the grocery store and your goal is to get food, then you’re going to the right place. If you’re going to the bank and you want food, you better re-examine the “where” or the “why” otherwise you’re going to be one hungry individual. Have a goal and a reason for the goal before you start negotiating.

Making the decision to separate from your spouse (especially when children are involved) involves a lot of moving variables. If you are able to negotiate a mutual and amicable arrangement with your ex, the next step will be putting it in writing. For more information about how to negotiate your child support payments and custody agreement in Ontario…or anywhere visit www.myontariodivorce.com or www.separatingfromyourspouse.com.

Sincerely,

Robert Berman B.C.L, LL.B
Founder & Family Law Lawyer

In Ontario, if your ex has been court ordered or has agreed in writing to pay child support, then the best way to enforce the child support order or child support agreement and collect the child support that is owed, is to register the child support Order or child support Agreement with the Family Responsibility Office (FRO). The child support Order will be sent to the Family Responsibility Office (FRO) by the Ontario Family Court making the Order.

Child support agreements will have to be registered with the Ontario Court of Justice who will then send the Agreement to the FRO for collection. Once your Child Support Order or Agreement is registered with the FRO, they will send you a filing package. You must complete the forms in the filing package and return them to the Family Responsibility Office.

The FRO will collect child support from your ex’s salary through a wage garnishment if the payor’s employer is known. In that event, you can expect child support payments to start arriving within 30 to 60 days after the child support garnishment has been registered. Payment dates may vary. Child support payors’ are required to make payments according to the child support court order or agreement. However, employers and other income sources are allowed to send child support payment deductions according to their pay schedules, even when these dates do not coincide with the due date set out in the child support court order.

An employer has two weeks to set up the child support payroll deduction once they receive the Support Deduction Notice from the Family Responsibility Office. The child support payment must be deducted in the next pay period and sent to the FRO. You can receive your payments from FRO by:

- Direct deposit into your bank account

- Cheques mailed to you

When child support payments fall behind, the FRO will try to work with the payor to enter into an agreement to pay any child support arrears by installments, in addition to paying the ongoing child support payments. The FRO can also collect funds from federal government sources and take enforcement actions to recover child support arrears including suspending your ex’s driver’s license and passport.

For more information about how to enforce your child support agreement in Ontario and collect child support from your spouse visit www.bermanbarristers.com or www.myontariodivorce.com.

Sincerely,

Robert Berman B.C.L, LL.B
Founder & Family Law Lawyer

There’s good and bad in every profession. Choosing the right divorce lawyer is an important decision. A good Ontario family lawyer can make or break your case. For starters, make sure that your divorce lawyer’s practice is restricted to or at least has an emphasis in Ontario Family Law. You don’t want your corporate lawyer handling your divorce.

It’s also a good idea to confirm that your divorce lawyer has been in the game for at least a few years. There is no substitute for experience and not just legal experience, but life experience too. Divorce is a mix of reason and emotion, law and psychology. You want a divorce lawyer who has mastery of both the legal and human factors that play out in a divorce.

That means that your divorce lawyer should understand the fundamentals of negotiation and how they overlap with the emotions that inevitably influence the course of the separation and divorce negotiations. Firmness combined with finesse will usually carry the day and save you thousands of dollars.

The bad news is that a good Toronto divorce lawyer is usually expensive. A really good divorce lawyer in Toronto could cost $300-$500 per/hour or more. You usually get what you pay for. The good news is that you don’t always need a divorce lawyer to negotiate and file your divorce in Ontario.

If you and your ex have agreed on everything and all you want to do is put your separation or divorce agreement in writing and get divorced, you can do most of the work yourself. Here are your choices.

Some will take time off work to visit the Ontario Family law court and attempt to fumble through their divorce forms. This can be risky, because the clerks at the Ontario Family law court cannot offer you advice and can only provide you with the divorce forms. If you need assistance you could wait all day to speak with duty counsel and their ability to help is limited.

You can purchase a divorce kit at your local Staples or Business Depot, but like if you visited the Ontario Family Court to obtain Ontario family law forms, you will have little help or guidance.

There are services that offer online tutorials where you can create your own Ontario divorce forms online. These services guide you through creating your Separation or Uncontested Divorce Agreement and are fully automated, so at the end your court form or agreement is available to download and print. Some will even offer access to an online legal opinion so if you simply have an Ontario family law question, you can purchase credits and get answers online.

For more information about how to find a good Toronto divorce lawyer or about creating your Ontario Family Law forms please visit www.bermanbarristers.com or www.myontariodivorce.com.

Sincerely,

Robert Berman B.C.L, LL.B
Founder & Family Law Lawyer

If you have recently separated from your spouse you may be thinking “how can I secure full custody of the kids?” There is no such thing as “full custody”. What you likely mean is “sole custody”. Sole custody generally means that the children will live primarily with you and that you will make all major decisions with respect to your children, including important decisions affecting their education, healthcare, religion, and other matters concerning your children’s well-being.

To obtain an order for sole custody you must prove to the court that you were always the children’s primary caregiver, that your husband had little or no involvement in the raising and care of your children, and that you and your husband are not capable, due to animosity, domestic abuse, etc., to make important decisions with respect to the children together.

Some have assumed that the mother will automatically get custody of the children. There is no presumption that the mother will be granted sole custody of the children. Who gets custody and what type of custody is ordered depends on who was the children’s primary caregiver during your marriage, where the children have been living since you separated, your involvement in the children’s lives and upbringing and how well you and your wife get along.

If you were heavily involved in your children’s lives and you and your wife are separating on reasonably good terms, a Judge might award you joint custody and/or shared custody.

Joint custody means that both you and your wife will have equal decision-making authority with respect to all major decisions affecting your children. It does not matter whether your children live most of the time with your wife as your decision making authority is not dependent on how often the children reside with you.

Shared custody means that the children live with you at least 40% of the time over a course of a full calendar year. An example of shared custody would be the children living with you and your wife on a week-on-week-off basis and the children living with each of you for an equal amount of time during their holidays from school.

In recent years, Judges have been making efforts to avoid using the terminology of “custody” and “access.” Instead, Judges are using words such as “primary residence,” “secondary residence,” and “decision-making authority.”

For a more detailed discussion about the different types of custody and residence arrangements we encourage you to read “Separating from Your Spouse 101” or visit www.myontariodivorce.com.

Sincerely,

Robert Berman B.C.L, LL.B
Founder & Family Law Lawyer