When wealthy people marry, their lawyers often advise them to ensure that their fiancé signs a prenuptial agreement. The goal is to protect the wealthy person’s family in case, G-d forbid, the marriage breaks up and/or when the wealthy spouse dies. So if the couple each hire good lawyers and the prenuptial agreement clearly spells out their agreement is that contract still open to challenge? Maybe. There is some question whether a surviving spouse can still sue for support even when she signed a valid prenuptial agreement. Let’s look at the law.

Reuben equally, in his will, and in accordance with his culture, all the assets of the father were left to the male heir. Is this legal? The legality of a father’s will may depend on which province’s law applies. If the law of British Columbia governed, there is a very good chance that Samantha would succeed and the court would order the estate be split equally. If Ontario law applied and there were no other legal issues raised concerning the validity of the will, then Samantha would have a less likely chance to win. Why the uncertainty? Let’s look at three cases to explain, Tataryn v. Tataryn, Cummings v. Cummings and Johnson v. Huchkewich.

Imagine Rebecca falling in love with a very wealthy older man. His children insist that before marriage she must sign a domestic contract and promise not to make any claim for support or division of property under either the Family Law Act or the Succession Law Reform Act. Rebecca is young, in love and knows that this man loves her. She agrees. Fast forward twenty years later and Rebecca’s husband has died. He has left her nothing in his Will and she has no means of support. Is there anything Rebecca can do? Maybe.

Paul suffered from Becker's Muscular Dystrophy. He often fell, had trouble standing up or sitting down and going down stairs was arduous. When his parents divorced, Paul's father undertook to support him and recognized that this obligation was to survive his death. In his Will, Father left $125,000 trust to care for Paul. The disease was progressively debilitating and the expense for Paul's care substantially increasing. It was clear that not even Father's entire estate of $650,000 would be enough to care for Paul. He asked for increased support with a dependant's relief application under the Succession Law Reform Act . The court considered the morality of giving everything to Paul at the expense of the other beneficiaries.