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Frequently asked questions > Marriage > Marriage > Planning of the legal aspects of your marriage

Planning of the legal aspects of your marriage

In a few weeks, in a few months, you will be married or united civilly? Your civil status will change, your rights and obligations as well.

A meeting with your notary will allow you to have an overall view of your new legal situation.

The great majority of married spouses in Quebec are submitted to the rules of the family patrimony. The following property, acquired after the marriage, will enter the family patrimony:

  • The residences of the family or the rights which confer the use of it;
  • The furniture which furnish or decorate these residences and which serve for the household;
  • The motor vehicles used for the travels of the family;
  • The accumulated rights, during the marriage, under a retirement plan;
  • The registered earnings, during the marriage, in the name of each spouse in application of the Quebec Pension Plan or of equivalent programs (except in the event of death).

Are excluded from the family patrimony:

  • The property received by one of the spouses, by succession or gift, before or during the marriage, or the reinvestment of this property.

The matrimonial regime deals with the other property which you can acquire after the marriage. In Quebec, the two significant matrimonial regimes are, at present, the regime of partnership of acquests and the regime of separation as to property.

The regime of partnership of acquests, the legal matrimonial regime in Quebec, provides for the existence of two categories of property: the "personal" property and the "acquests" property. Personal property is the one of which you will be the owner at the time of marriage. The other property, except those received by succession or gift, will be acquests property by virtue of the law. At the time of divorce or death, each of the spouses can ask for the partition in value of the acquests property of the other spouse in accordance with the established rules.

In the regime of separation as to property, there is only personal property. The patrimony of the spouses are thus autonomous. The professionals and self-employed should think of adopting the separation as to property as a matrimonial regime. The entrepreneurs who do not wish to share a part of the value of their business with a non-partner spouse in the event of divorce should also adopt this matrimonial regime.

You have to keep in mind that, no matter the matrimonial regime chosen, you will remain submitted to the family patrimony.

The marriage contract can thus turn out here to be a useful protection tool. The marriage contract to be mandatorily notarized, your notary can receive this document for you.

The Civil Code of Quebec created various orders of distribution of the property of a spouse who died without a Will. Thus, the marriage assures an incomplete protection to the surviving spouse. Your notary can usefully advise you as regard the drafting of a Will.

Well informed spouses will want to give solid legal bases to their marriage or their civil union, your notary can help you there.

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