Sea to Sky Law Blog

First, like your dentist and GP, your lawyer is busy helping others. Appointments are mutually beneficial because you get the lawyer's time focused on your needs. But more important legally is that the Law Society has pre-requisites. Lawyers must first ID their clients for 2 reasons: like banks...

Tribunals have existed for years to provide specialized and hopefully more efficient thus cheaper resolution of many different types of disputes which would cost too many tax dollars let alone your legal fees to fight about in court. You will have heard about the different specialized tribunals...

Did you know that child support, since it is the right of the child, is a priority for the courts to calculate and enforce. Further, FMEP was created to provide parents with a free collection and enforcement service - even if the other parent does not live in the same Province. The calculation ...

READ and understand BEFORE YOU SIGN ! The recent BC decision on 25 April 2022 enforced the usual clause in a real estate contract that the realtor commission is payable even though the property is not sold because the realtor had fulfilled his obligations thus the Listing Agreement was an enforc...

Two newspaper articles that were in the Vancouver Sun about two different legal claims being dismissed emphasize the need for good legal advice before you file a legal claim. See: "Judge rules against Vancouver woman whose face was bitten by friends' dog at a dinner party", Story by David Carrigg...

To be or not to be - an Executor? If a person has been named in a Will to administer an Estate then men are called an Executor and women Executrix. There can be more than one person named either together so there has to be joint decisions about the estate or named in succession so there is a rep...

I have a friend who is intellectually disabled. She reads at about a second-grade level. If I am unable to help her can a lawyer? The question does not appear to be about whether the person is physically capable but whether the person has the mental competence to make decisions in their own best...

QUESTION - If a parent has sole custody but has not exercised the custody leaving the children in the care of non-custodial parents; and does not speak to the children, or financially help with the children. Can the non-custodial parent who has actual care of the children apply for custody? ANSW...

What does it mean when a lawyer says there is a conflict of interest? Why do I have to show ID and retain a lawyer before getting my questions answered ? To protect the public from uneducated advice, only lawyers are allowed to provide legal advice. Lawyers are vetted and licensed by their State...

Many people know that the 2013 FLA has a 50/50 division of family assets as the starting point then one can argue whether half would be fair. But a Supreme Court decision in 2021 highlighted a mistake many make. The first argument is not about the size of the asset share but whether the asset is...

SOLVING ESTATE DISPUTES After death the documents such as your Power of Attorney stop giving any authority thus you need to make a Will to state your decisions and wishes eg who will find, protect and administer your estate then distribute the net value after paying your debts to your named bene...

Many people do not know that - in Western Law - there are two kinds of people on the planet = humans and corporations who have many of the same rights as humans. When creating a corporation you are literally creating a new person in law and your choices and those consequences have to be considere...

Have you heard of UNbundled legal services ? Traditionally you retain a professional to do everything they think is best for you whether a physician or accountant or lawyer etc - you retain the professional for the whole bundle of services related to the issue eg custody battle or challenging a W...

Our Supreme Court of Canada (SCC), as shown above in one of its archive photos, released its decision cited as 2021 SCC 49 dismissing an Appeal of CRA represented by the Federal Minister. The lower Appeal Court and the trial Court had each dismissed the view of CRA that there had been abusive tax...

In Britain both lawyers and judges can still wear wigs as well as robes. In British Columbia, we do not wear wigs, and starting November 2021 we no longer address BC Supreme Court justices with the traditional My Lord or My Lady. There is a helpful summary on the Provincial Court website at https...

Statistics Canada provides that in 2017 over 70% of Canadians between the age of 25 to 64 had a partner and that the number in 2016 who were in a "common law" partnership versus formally married had increased to over 20 percent. The question of course is - what difference does it make whether yo...