Vancouver Inadequate Family Financial Disclosure cases are unfortunately all too common. BC Family Judges now deal very sternly with failure to make full financial disclosure. Our offices have repeatedly caught and punished recalcitrant spouses who tried to hide income and assets.
Our senior Vancouver family lawyers know that full financial disclosure is critical to enabling parties to negotiate or litigate a fair family property and support result. Family law experts, lawyers and judges often say “non-disclosure is the cancer of family law litigation“. When you are applying to vary a support order you cannot go too far in making full financial disclosure. Failure to do so will most certainly result in a negative outcome for your variation application. In today’s blog, Lorne MacLean, QC and Fraser MacLean explain why full disclosure matters if you want to win your family law case. To be clear, Vancouver Inadequate Family Financial Disclosure behaviour is no longer being tolerated by lawyers and judges.
Maclean Law wins Against Non-Disclosing Spouses Call 1 877 602 9900
Lorne N. MacLean, QC has made a number of bold moves in Vancouver Inadequate Family Financial Disclosure cases to ferret out the truth through, forensic audits at the expense of the guilty party, Anton Pillar surprise raids that found millions of hidden income and resulted in jail time, international Mareva freezing orders, Mareva injunctions are a type of worldwide asset restraining order arising from s. 39 of the Law and Equity Act, Rule 12-4, and the inherent jurisdiction of the court. In our Mareva injunction and record-setting support amount success in D. v. D, 2017 BCSC 1010, the court granted a without notice order ahead of service of the notice of family claim to protect out-of-jurisdiction assets from disposal and found the husband had lied and hidden assets in the divorce and ordered him to pay special costs. Our thorough lifestyle audits, our ability to prove forgery of documents, and the ability of our skilled lawyers in cracking lying parties on the stand in blistering cross-examinations and the like help ensure non-disclosure is exposed and punished through jail time, fines and special costs. The case law on these Vancouver Inadequate Family Financial Disclosure winning strategies now forms precedents for other BC family lawyers to use to obtain a just result for BC and Calgary family clients.
Vancouver Inadequate Family Financial Disclosure Call 1 877 602 9900
in Kojosness v Kojosness just released by our BC Court of Appeal, a husband who failed to heed the trial judge’s guidance on what was needed by way of full disclosure had his variation of support application dismissed and his appeal of that dismissal also refused. So what did he fail to do on disclosure and how can you learn from this case? Let’s find out now.
Why Full Disclosure Matters Call 1 877 602 9900
The appellant-husband brought an application to retroactively vary his spousal support obligations and cancel arrears in the range of $30,000. The chambers judge dismissed the application on the basis that the husband had provided insufficient financial disclosure.
The husband’s appeal was dismissed because he failed to establish that the judge committed any error warranting appellate intervention. The husband had been informed of the sort of evidence that would be needed to ground a successful application but failed to provide a sufficient evidentiary foundation for the orders sought. He also failed to show the judge made an error at law.
Here is what the BC Court of Appeal said:
19] In D.M.B. v. D.W.A.L., 2018 BCSC 1254, Mr. Justice Punnett highlighted some of the consequences of insufficient disclosure in family matters:
[48] This court has repeatedly noted the negative effects of inadequate and delayed disclosure. It increases expense, discourages settlement, prolongs the stress of litigation and, where children are involved, negatively affects them (see Cunha v. Cunha (1994), 99 B.C.L.R. (2d) 93 at para. 9 and Sebok v. Batis, 2018 BCSC 585 at paras. 13-15).
[20] First of all, I need not comment on the husband’s desire, as stated in his factum, to appeal the order of Justice B.J. Brown in 2017, except to note that this relief cannot form part of what he seeks on appeal. This appeal can only relate to the alleged errors of the chambers judge in August 2018. No appeal was taken of Justice B.J. Brown’s order.
[21] In so far as the merits of this appeal are concerned, it is noteworthy, in my view, that the husband did not heed the advice of Justice B.J. Brown regarding the 2017 support application as to what would be needed to bring a successful application. As mentioned above, she suggested that he provide the court with “a full history of earnings, assets, disposition of assets [and] complete tax returns”, which would help demonstrate that he could not pay or why he could not pay. This would assist in establishing a material change of circumstances such that the court could be satisfied that spousal support should be reduced or arrears cancelled.
[22] At the hearing before the chambers judge, the financial information relied on by the husband was sparse in the extreme and did not approach what is required on applications to vary support orders. Furthermore, as noted by the chambers judge, the husband in fact contradicted some of the financial information that he himself provided, being the audited financial statement information circular of Marapharm Ventures Inc.
Our skilled Vancouver Inadequate Family Financial Disclosure can help you obtain justice if a spouse has refused to make full disclosure and conversely we can help you ensure that you put the proper information in front of the court to allow yourself to succeed.
