Entering a New Relationship?

COHABITATION AND PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENTS

If you and your partner are living together or intend to live together, you may wish to enter into a cohabitation agreement. A cohabitation agreement will protect your interests upon entering a new relationship, particularly relating to property, business interests, and spousal support. A cohabitation agreement enables both spouses to contemplate what is fair, prior to assuming new responsibilities, and will govern the division of property and support upon the breakdown of the relationship. If you should get married down the road, a cohabitation agreement would become a marriage contract pursuant to the Family Law Act. If you don’t plan to get married you may wish protect yourself and each other, by drafting wills as unmarried spouses will not automatically inherit from each other in the event of death.

SURROGACY AGREEMENTS

Fertility law, or third party reproductive technology law, is regulated in Canada by the Assisted Human Reproduction Act, 2004.  While the Act does not prohibit surrogacy, egg donation, embryo donation or sperm donation, it prohibits the payment of surrogates or donors. The Act is a complicated piece of legislation and there is little case law to guide parties who enter into agreements and are bound by it

SPERM DONOR AGREEMENTS

Sperm donation is legal in Canada but there are some restrictions. Where the sperm donor is known, it is crucial that the parties enter into a sperm donation agreement prior to the conception of a child, otherwise there may be unintended rights and obligations bestowed upon a donor. An agreement will become the best evidence that parties may have regarding their intentions when the child was conceived.