“The wife has provided a valuation of her business interests as at the date of separation. However, she has excluded the value of business interests that she claims were gifted or inherited by her during the marriage. In Hamilton v. Hamilton, 1996 CanLII 599 (ON CA), Osbourne, J. explained that in determining a spouse’s net family property,
“The first step required by s.4 is to identify all relevant property. Then ownership has to be determined. At this stage, trust principles may be brought to bear such that ownership of property for net family property purposes is deemed to be different from that which may be recorded in a title document. Once the ownership of property is established, the value of the property at the valuation date must be determined.
Next, the court must determine the relevant deductions and exclusions under s. 4(1) and 4(2) of the Family Law Act. When that exercise is complete, the court calculates each spouse’s net family property and then, following the Act, determines the required equalization payment to be paid by one party to the other. It is at this point that the court considers whether to reduce or eliminate the equalization payment by resort to the provisions of s. 5(6) of the Act.”
The wife is required, therefore, to value her excluded assets. The usual course with respect to excluded property (e.g., inherited property) is to include it all and “back it out” later as the form provides. It does not follow that because property is excluded, i.e., not part of net family property and subject to equalization, that there is no disclosure obligation. In addition, this property may well be relevant for the purpose of the determination of spousal support: Citron v. Citron: 2008 CanLII 71525 (ONSC), at para. 5.”