The tip today is: marital property must be divided by a written agreement AND each spouse needs a lawyer to sign a Certificate to the agreement confirming that they have given independent legal advice (ILA). Under the law in Alberta you MUST have a written agreement and ILA or you will NOT satisfy the legislative requirements of Alberta for dividing property on a final basis. In other words BEWARE of non-legal services that divorce you and do not divide property or services which provide documents which state that you can divide property using a contract without a lawyer.
If you do not have a properly executed agreement with ILA, you may find out that you have not divided your property and that your spouse still has a claim for half of your assets. There are cases in which spouses have separated, moved on with their lives and started businesses only to find out years later that they must divide the value of their business with their former spouse, because they did not finalize the division of their property correctly. Issues can also arise with selling and financing property (banks like to see separation agreements.) Capital gains taxes may accrue which could have been avoided (CRA likes to see separation agreements.)
The other pitfall occurs if you get a Divorce without considering property division. A clock starts ticking after you are formally divorced which could bar you from applying to divide property after 2 years.
The POINT: Divide property with a written agreement with ILA, and ask questions if you are not sure.
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