Common-Law Marriage in BC: What It Means and Whether You Need an Agreement

There is no "common-law marriage" in BC law

The phrase is everywhere, but you will not find it in BC's Family Law Act. The Act talks about people who have lived together "in a marriage-like relationship." Once you meet the conditions, the law calls you a spouse, the same word it uses for married couples.

There is nothing to register and nothing to sign. You do not have to intend it, and you do not have to agree to it. The status arrives on its own, based on how you live.

When common-law status starts

BC has two routes to spousal status for couples who are not married. Which one applies depends on whether you have a child together.

Child support sits outside all of this. A parent owes child support to their child whether or not the parents were ever spouses, and however long they lived together, if they lived together at all.

The relationship is measured from the day you began living together in a marriage-like way. If you later marry, the clock still runs from when you moved in, not from the wedding.

What counts as a marriage-like relationship

There is no checklist. BC courts look at the whole relationship, and no single factor decides it. The BC Court of Appeal confirmed this whole-picture approach in Weber v. Leclerc, 2015 BCCA 492.

The things courts usually weigh include:

• Whether you share a home, and how you share it.
• Whether you have a romantic and sexual relationship and are committed to each other.
• How you handle money, household costs, and everyday chores.
• How you present yourselves to family, friends, and the world, as a couple at events, on holidays, and on forms.
• What you each expected. A relationship you both saw as long-term and open-ended points toward marriage-like.

Separate bank accounts, or one partner keeping their own place, do not settle the question on their own. Courts test what people say they intended against how they lived. A partner who says "we were never common-law" may not be believed if everything about the relationship says otherwise.

What common-law status changes

Once you are spouses under the Family Law Act, most of the rules that apply to married couples apply to you too.

• Family property. What either of you acquired during the relationship is generally shared equally if you separate, no matter whose name it is in.
• What stays yours. Property you owned before the relationship, plus gifts and inheritances, is generally excluded. The growth in its value during the relationship is shared.
• Family debt. Debt taken on during the relationship is generally shared too.
• Spousal support. Either of you may be able to claim it if the relationship ends, depending on need, the roles you each played, and your finances.
• Pensions. Workplace pensions earned during the relationship can be divided.

This is not a rule that "everything gets split down the middle." When the relationship began, what each of you brought in, and how assets were used all shape the outcome. The details are where the money is.

If you separate: the two-year clock

Married couples need a divorce to end their marriage. Common-law couples do not. Your relationship ends when you separate, and that date starts a clock.

You can be separated while still living under the same roof. What matters is that at least one of you has ended the relationship and acted on it. Because so much turns on the date, it helps to put it in writing, even in an email.

Most couples never go near court. They reach a final separation agreement through negotiation, mediation, or collaborative law. The deadline still matters, because it decides how long you can wait before a claim is out of reach. The clock can pause in some situations while you work with a family dispute resolution professional, so get advice before counting on that.

Is a common-law agreement right for you?

A common-law agreement, also called a cohabitation agreement, is a written contract that sets your own rules for property, debt, and spousal support, instead of leaving them to the Family Law Act. It matters most when:

• You are bringing assets in. A home, a business, investments, or savings you built before this relationship.
• You have children from a previous relationship and want to protect what you plan to leave them.
• Your finances are very different. Different incomes, debts, or savings are easier to plan for now than to argue about later.
• You are buying property together and want clear terms on who contributed what.
• You have been through a hard separation before and know what it costs when nothing was written down.

When it is not the right tool

• If you plan to combine everything and build from a shared starting point, the default rules may already match what you want.
• If you are married, you need a marriage agreement instead.
• No agreement can waive child support or decide future parenting arrangements. Those turn on the best interests of the child.

Our full guide to cohabitation agreements covers what to include, what makes an agreement hold up, and what a lawyer does that an online template cannot.

Raising it with your partner

For most couples, the hardest part is starting the conversation. It goes better when you frame it as protecting both of you, not as a lack of trust. Two people who care about each other have every reason to be clear about money.

Raise it early, before the stakes feel high. If a reasonable conversation about finances is met with sustained anger or a flat refusal, pay attention. That tells you something about how money decisions will be made in the relationship.

Where to go next

Cohabitation Agreements in BC ›

Our full guide: what to include, what makes an agreement enforceable, and a client story about getting it wrong.

Division of Property ›

How family property and excluded property work when a relationship ends, married or common-law.

Spousal Support in BC ›

Who qualifies, how amounts are estimated, and the deadlines that matter.

Separation in BC ›

Where to start if your relationship has already ended.

Common-law status arrives quietly. The rules that come with it do not. Whether you are moving in, a few years in, or already apart, knowing where you stand lets you make your choices on purpose. We help couples with exactly this in Victoria, Nanaimo, Vancouver, and Surrey, and by video anywhere in BC.

We have offices in Victoria, Nanaimo, Vancouver, and Surrey, and we serve clients province-wide by video.