Two recent Ontario decisions – Curd v. Pare, 2026 ONSC 2430 [Curd] & Allmendinger v. The Estate of Heather Ruth Brown, Deceased, by its Estate Trustee, Garry Cass, 2026 ONSC 4710 [Allmendinger] – offer a useful contrast in how courts determine whether a spouse qualifies as a dependant under Part V of the Succession Law Reform Act (“SLRA”).
In Curd, a claimant remained legally married to the deceased at the time of his death but was denied dependant support. In Allmendinger, an unmarried common-law partner who had been omitted entirely from a decades-old Will obtained lifetime support from the estate.
The Statutory Starting Point:
Section 58(1) of the SLRA empowers the court to intervene where a deceased has failed to make adequate provision for the proper support of his or her dependants.
The threshold question is therefore whether the claimant qualifies as a “dependant” under s. 57 of the SLRA, which includes “the spouse of the deceased…to whom the deceased was providing support or was under a legal obligation to provide support immediately before his or her death.”
Curd: Legally Married, but Not a Dependant
In Curd, the appellant and the deceased married in December 2017. Their period of cohabitation as a married couple was brief. By October 2018, approximately nine months later, they had separated and established separate residences. The deceased died in February 2023. Although the parties remained legally married, his 2021 Will made no provision for the appellant.
The appellant maintained that the parties had reconciled in January 2019 but continued living in separate residences. She sought both equalization under the Family Law Act (“FLA”) and dependant support under the SLRA.
The appellant argued that s. 30 of the FLA creates an automatic support obligation sufficient to establish dependant status under s. 57 of the SLRA.The court rejected an automatic application of that proposition. While the appellant remained legally married to the deceased, that status alone did not establish dependency under the SLRA. The question was whether, immediately before his death, the deceased was providing support or was under a legal obligation to do so.
The evidence established neither. The parties had lived separately for years, and the appellant remained employed, earning more than the deceased. There was evidence of payments from the deceased to the appellant after the separation, but they were sporadic and did not transform the relationship into one of ongoing support.
Applying the factors under s. 62 of the SLRA, the Court considered the parties’ lengthy separation, short marriage, financial arrangements and income disparity, concluding that the appellant had failed to establish financial dependency on the deceased.
Further, the court found that the parties had not reconciled after their 2018 separation. Although their separate residences were not treated as determinative of whether the parties continued to cohabit in a conjugal relationship, it was an important factor of the broader evidentiary picture. The deceased’s communications, the absence of any permanent effort to resume cohabitation, steps toward a separation agreement, and his subsequent 2021 Will all supported the finding that there was no reasonable prospect of resumed cohabitation.
As a result, the appellant did not establish an entitlement to dependant support under Part V of the SLRA, however, she did recieve equalization under the FLA.
Allmendinger: No Marriage, but Clear Dependency
The facts in Allmendinger point in almost the opposite direction. The Deceased died in November 2023, leaving a 2006 will that gave her entire estate to her adult daughter and made no provision for the claimant, her common-law spouse of approximately ten years.
There was no dispute over spousal status; the Estate conceded that the claimant qualified as the Deceased’s common-law spouse. More importantly, the evidence established an ongoing relationship of financial dependency. The Deceased provided the claimant with housing and substantially funded his living and transportation expenses throughout their relationship. Although the Deceased never amended her will to provide for him, her testamentary intentions could not displace her statutory obligations under Part V of the SLRA. The relevant economic reality was that the claimant remained financially dependent on the Deceased immediately before her death.
That dependency, however, did not give the claimant a proprietary interest in the Deceased’s condominium. He remained in the property following her death while advancing a constructive trust claim, despite never having been on title or having contributed to its acquisition or carrying costs. The Estate continued to pay those costs after the Deceased’s death. The claimant ultimately abandoned the constructive trust claim, and the Court ordered him to vacate the condominium.
Quantifying the Support Obligation
The Court also rejected the amount of support claimed. The claimant sought approximately $4,873 per month for life, or alternatively a lump-sum award exceeding $800,000. The evidence did not support these figures.
Rather than accept his proposed budget, the Court reconstructed the level of support the Deceased had actually provided during the relationship. It fixed support at $3,300 per month, comprising approximately $2,000 for housing, $1,050 for living expenses and $250 for transportation.
The Court’s approach to quantification is noteworthy. The Deceased had been drawing down capital and spending beyond her recurring income, and the evidence did not establish that the couple’s anticipated (or rather aspirational) retirement lifestyle was sustainable. The Court therefore declined to convert that pattern of expenditure into a lifetime entitlement against the Estate. Instead, the award reflected, in reasonable terms, the level of support the Deceased had actually provided during her lifetime.
