Category Archives: Supreme Court of British Columbia

adultery, breach of contract, cheating, child support, infidelity, legal proceedings, separation, Supreme Court of British Columbia

Court Settlement Agreement–$155,000

Shocker!  My ex showed up at court.  He has never attended a hearing for any court application that I have had to file due to his breach of contract.  There were two hearings in 2016 and this was the 4th hearing for the application that I filed in December 2018.  He never attended any of them. When I saw him, my heart started beating out of my chest.  I thought, “What tricks are he and his lawyer up to this time?”

For about 2 1/2 hours he had to sit and listen to how his behaviour was “egregious” and “inappropriate”.  After our last hearing in October 2019, the judge ordered him to pay the child support amount he owed after filing his 2018 taxes. He did not comply.   He never did provide an accounting of what happened to the RESP money for our children.  He never provided any banking information about his rental property, just receipts showing maintenance that was required on the property.  He tried to show losses but failed to provide an accounting for any rental income. He listed the value of his share of the rental property as $40,000 yet he conveniently sold it to a business partner, the day after our January 2019 hearing, for just $4,500.  He also failed to provide documentation surrounding other income he received during his employment.

His lawyer had no submissions.  His lawyer didn’t have much of a defense for my ex’s behaviour except to say that he could have done better with his accounting and that he knew he owed me support payments and had no problem with my lawyer’s numbers.  Yet, he chose not to pay the arrears.  He could have made a “Without Prejudice” payment as far back as December 2018 when he acknowledged his income increased significantly.

Instead, his lawyer tried to discredit my character by saying that my 2019 tax return failed to show all of the support that I received in 2019.  My ex didn’t even show up to court with a completed 2019 tax return (despite the reason we are at court is that he failed to exchange tax information with me, as per our agreement,  for 3 years, now 4 years, knowing his income increased every year) and yet they are picking apart mine, an area that does not even affect anything that my ex owes?

I could see my lawyer’s frustration and she explained to my ex’s lawyer and the judge that I have no idea what the actual support amount should be because my ex failed to provide the information for it to be calculated. The judge agreed and indicated that it is between me and my accountant and is irrelevant.

At the time I filed my taxes, I had no idea what the support amounts were as my ex hadn’t completed a tax return for 2016, 2017 and 2018.  The judge was not able to rule on spousal support owing until my ex provided the accounting he had requested which he did not.  The judge ordered my ex increase support payments to me by paying $8000/month until spousal support could be calculated.  My ex couldn’t even manage to obey that order for an entire year and arbitrarily decided to reduce the payment by $800/month just in time for Xmas,  I filed my taxes with a support amount as per our last court order. If he is ordered to pay more for subsequent years then there is a specific CRA form my ex is required to complete. I have to submit that and have my taxes recalculated for all of the years so that I am not unfairly penalized in the tax year I receive an arrears lump sum amount.

The judge mentioned three ways he could award me and penalize my ex for his conduct.  He mentioned applying interest to the outstanding support payment.  He mentioned not allowing my ex to receive the tax deduction for spousal support and not requiring me to have to claim the lump sum spousal support figure as taxable income.  He also mentioned my ex having to pay my legal expenses.

Just before the lunch break, the judge did ask us to try to settle the matter because he said that he did not believe the court could grant me the justice I probably deserved.  I learned afterwards that it was unlikely that I would be awarded all three things discussed because the judge would not want to leave it open for my ex to appeal.  If it was deemed to be too punitive towards my ex, he may have a case.

My ex offered to pay the full amount of arrears for spousal and child support for our younger daughter only–$125,782 for spousal and $4016 for our daughter and special expenses of $1716.  (The judge had already ordered him to pay the outstanding child support for our younger daughter in the order received in July 2019, which was about $17,000 and he had been paying me around $5000/month more for  the 12 months after our first appearance for the December 2018 court application and then $4200/month more for the last 6 months).  If he had not made any increases, and he only did because I filed the court application, arrears would have been significantly higher. He also agreed to pay $23,486 towards my costs.

Having him acknowledge he owed me costs was important and is reflected in the order so if we have to go back to court again it shows that my ex agreed his conduct was improper.

My lawyer felt that I would receive more if I left it with the judge but last time it took 6 months for a decision and it has never been my intention to punish my ex, no matter how deserving.  Practicing mercy is good for me and even though I thought it might soften his heart and that he might show some humility and appreciation, his actions following this have shown there has been no change in his attitude.  He is digging his heels in further and it is highly likely we will be back in court again.

 

 

 

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abuse of power, child support, Family Law, infidelity, legal proceedings, Male abuse of power and wealth, special expenss, spousal support, Supreme Court of British Columbia

Apparently I am a Bar Joke

2019 ended with my ex sending an email acknowledging he owed me $117,000 in retroactive support payments but advised that his lawyer told him not to pay me unless I sign an order dismissing all outstanding matters before the court.  He also reduced his support payments to me by more than $700/month to put pressure on me to do this.

We have a mediation agreement in place that spells out exactly how he is to pay support. For 3 years he chose not to disclose his income.  I had no choice but to go to court in order for him to do this.  That forced him to disclose 2 years of income information and to file his taxes for the 3rd year of income. He still failed, however, to disclose all sources of income as per the agreement so the judge gave him an additional 60 days to do that.  He did not.  Now we have to secure another court date.  It is clear from what has been disclosed that he at least owes $117,000 but he said he isn’t going to pay voluntarily.  He will wait for the judge to order that.

This is not a negotiable issue. We have an agreement in place since 2014 but as usual, even though he gloated about how much he “won” in that agreement, he still wants to play games and withhold support as a power and control move over me. His response:

“You’ve become a bar joke Robyn. People always have a horror story about divorce and the crazy ex’s and what they have to pay in support. No one can top me. I tell people to read the blog so they can see what type of person I’m dealing with. I tell people how much I pay in support and they are flabbergasted at what you do. That’s what you’ve become at age 53, a bar joke, and not much else.”

He’s got one thing right.  No one can top him.

He makes in excess of $225,000/year.  He won’t pay any portion of our daughter’s dance expenses even though he agreed this would be a special expense where we pay our share according to our income. He never paid a dime towards our pet expenses even though he agreed to pay 50%.  He hasn’t contributed a dime to support our daughter’s Global Perspectives trip to Tanzania where she has worked for 2 years in school to raise funds to build a library for a girls’ dorm.  He came to one meeting, signed the consent for her to go, made an appearance at one of the fundraisers (although apart from his $15/ticket he never gave any money to the cause or donated anything for the silent auction) and even though he knows exactly from the meeting the cost of the trip he still asked me twice to send over the information. (I actually have sent it at least 3 times and every time I followed up asking if he was forwarding his share of the payments to me he asked me to send the documentation again).  There are a lot of things she needs for this trip but all I asked him to contribute towards is the flight and hotel–$4800, $180 for the passport and $250 for vaccinations and malaria pills. He recognizes that the trip is considered an Extraordinary Expense under the Family Law Act for our daughter’s education and knows he is required to pay his share.  His response to me in December is that I can’t have my cake and eat it too. He wants me to sign the consent saying I won’t go after him for anything else he is responsible to pay, he will pay me the $117,000 and he will then consider paying me the trip (the expense was incurred after our court application was filed so it is not currently before the court, but we will now just add it).

If he wants to complain about what he has to pay in support, he should at least pay it. If he didn’t want to pay support, he never should have had an affair and left the marriage.  If he now spends his time sitting in bars telling his story to anyone who will listen then I suspect that 7 years after having an affair and destroying his family and everything we built together, that the grass is not so green on the other side.

 

 

 

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