British Columbia Divorce Information

Just like in most other provinces of Canada, divorce in BC is also regulated by the Divorce Acts of Canada. As per this Act, the divorce is possible only if the spouses can prove that their marriage has broken down and there are no prospects for reconciliation between them. Marital breakdown can be established by three ways. You can claim divorce on the basis of irreversible breakdown of your marriage if you and your spouse have been living apart for more than one year. This is the easiest and most common way to establish marital breakdown. It is also possible to get a divorce if you can prove in the court that your spouse has committed adultery or has been abusive to you.

Divorce is a legal procedure and only a court has the power to terminate a legal marriage. Usually, there are two ways to conclude your marriage. You can do it very peacefully and cordially through an uncontested divorce, without hurting each other or causing too many financial or emotional troubles. Otherwise, you can take your divorce to the court and let the judge to decide the terms and condition of your divorce. This type of divorce, commonly known as contested or fault –based divorce, is usually very lengthy and costly.

Contested divorce typically happens when the divorcing spouses have serious disagreements over divorce or its related issues and want to get court intervention to settle their disputes. If you and your spouse decide to proceed with a contested divorce, the first thing you have to do is to appoint a good divorce attorney. Both spouses require separate lawyers to defend their case in the court. Unlike in an uncontested divorce, lawyers play a major role in contested divorces.

Contested divorce involves many extensive and complicated legal proceedings like Case Conference, Discovery Process, Motions, Settlement Conference, and trials. Divorce trials include giving evidences, witness examinations, and arguments and counter arguments of both lawyers. On the basis of all these, the judge will pass a verdict.

If any of the spouses does not want to follow that decision, he or she can go for an Appeal or post-trial motions. Actually, most couples who are going to get divorce in BC prefer to avoid trials. Recently, in a news article titled “The divorce that never ends” it has been pointed out that only a 10 percent of divorce cases go to the court and among that only a 5 percent ends in divorce trials.