Other Assets

There are many assets you may have that should be included in the Net Family Property statement. There are some employment related assets you or your spouse may not think of, or perhaps your spouse may try to hide some assets from you.

There are various employment related assets you can expect to see on your spouse’s Net Family Property statement.

Sick Leave Gratuity

Most teachers, and some government employees receive an amount, on retirement, to compensate or reward them for the fact that they were not absent from work as much as they were legally allowed to be. This agreement is generally part of a collective agreement. The agreement generally provides that the employee is allowed a certain number of sick days each year. Any sick days not used are accumulated until retirement. At that time the employee has a choice of taking the accumulated time off or taking a lump sum payment. The lump sum is generally calculated as the employee’s daily pay rate at the time of retirement times the total accumulated sick leave days not taken (to a maximum number of days) divided by two. A member can receive up to six months’ salary. The sick leave gratuity is a contractual future interest in a sum of money, and therefore it is property under the Family Law Act.

Termination Payment

The Ontario Public Service Act establishes that Ontario government employees have a right to a “termination payment” on retirement, death, or release from employment. This payment is based on the pay rate and the service accumulated while the employee worked for the Ontario government. The payment is a right. It is calculated based on past service, so it is obviously an asset that must be accounted for on separation or divorce.

Severance Pay or Retirement Allowance

The master agreement between the Treasury Board and the Public Service Alliance of Canada provides for payment of severance pay to members of the alliance on retirement, layoff, resignation, or death. The payment is based on salary and years of service. The payment is pursuant to a legal contract and is granted for past service. Most case law has determined this to be a family asset.

Lieu Time

Police Officers often are required to attend at court outside their normal hours of work. Usually they are not paid overtime for these hours; instead, they can accumulate the time and take equivalent time off at their convenience. This is referred to as lieu time. Any lieu time accumulated at the date of separation should be valued and included in the officer’s assets.

Of course if you have any of these employment related assets, you will want to make sure that they are valued as low as possible and still be reasonable.

Canada Pension Plan

The Federal Government has made it easy for couples to share Canada Pension Plan credits when a marriage breaks down. A person need only inform the Canada Pension Plan administration of the divorce, and the matter will automatically be taken care of. This is accomplished by transferring Canada Pension Plan credits from one of the parties to the other, so they both have the same amount of credits accumulated during the marriage.

Canada Pension Plan records indicate that very few people avail themselves of this equalization of credits. This may be because people are not aware of this possibility. In fact, in a divorce there is often no discussion of Canada Pension Plan credits accumulated during the marriage, and the credits are not considered in the equalization of assets. The credits are considered property but are not included in the accounting of marriage period assets.

Many people lose thousands of dollars because they do not have Canada Pension Plan credits equalized.

Survivor Benefit

If you retired before you separated from your spouse, your pension still has to be valued and included in your assets. However, the good news is that you probably have what is called a “Joint and Survivor Pension”. This means that your spouse may also have an interest in your pension which must be valued and included in their assets.