“In my view, it is equally appropriate to take [notional disposition] such costs into account in determining net family property under the Family Law Act if there is satisfactory evidence of a likely disposition date and if it is clear that such costs will be inevitable when the owner disposes of the assets or is deemed to have disposed of them. In my view, for the purposes of determining net family property, any asset is worth (in money terms) only the amount which can be obtained on its realization, regardless of whether the accounting is done as a reduction in the value of the asset, or as deduction of a liability: the result is the same. While these costs are not liabilities in the balance sheet sense of the word, they are amounts which the owner will be obliged to satisfy at the time of disposition, and hence, are ultimate liabilities inextricably attached to the assets themselves.”
Sengmuller v. Sengmuller, 1994 CanLII 8711 (ON CA) per McKinlay J.A.