Knowledge base · Ontario CourtBuddy 1.20.10 · Last updated October 2, 2026

Getting started

What each part of the app is for

• Your cases (dashboard) — your case list, the “＋ New case” button, quick links to calculators, court forms, court links, the filing guide, and security, a 📁 Form Repository button (browse the full form library without opening a case), a Mission Control widget, and a Reminders panel — plus the Ontario form tracker sidebar showing current official form versions.
• Case workspace tabs — Overview (case details), Mission (next-steps hub), Matter (parties and children), Calculators (with saved results), Forms (worksheets, checklists, disclosure, offers, and filing packages), Planning (tasks and timelines), Action items (per-case to-do list), SWOT (case strategy analysis), Safety (protection-order guidance), Chronicle (incident records), SafePath (safety plan), Reunify (reunification planner), Child welfare (concerns log), Parenting time, Access calendar (year-at-a-glance parenting-time calendar), Comms (co-parent email drafts), Documents (your document inventory), Trackers (support/expense trackers), Directory and Housing (the public directories inside your workspace), Pro tools, Journal (encrypted notes and timeline), Members (invite another user to a case with wrapped encryption keys).
• Quick intake — upload an existing court document (PDF or Word); CourtBuddy extracts names, dates, and dollar figures and offers to apply them to your case.

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Your first case — a fictional walkthrough FICTIONAL

Everything in this section is a made-up example. “Sarah Mitchell (fictional)” and “David Mitchell (fictional)” are invented names; the numbers, dates, and facts below are invented only to show how the screens work. Do not treat them as real cases, and do not treat the results shown as correct for your situation — they are legal information, not legal advice.

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How-to guides

⚖ Ontario law as of 2026-10-02. Legal information only — not legal advice. These guides show how the buttons work; they say nothing about what you should do in your matter. Verify every procedure against official sources and talk to a licensed Ontario lawyer or legal clinic. Every guide below says what the app handles and what you must do yourself.

Every screenshot below is a genuine capture of the current release, taken with a fictional case (“Rivera (fictional)”). Names, dates, and amounts in the screenshots are invented for demonstration. Everything starts on the Your cases dashboard — desktop and phone:

Guide 1 · Upload a document, check the analysis, and impute the data

The app handles: reading files, detecting values with confidence scores, auto-applying only high-confidence finds, logging everything so it can be undone. You must do yourself: review every row before applying — detection is a guess, and it can mis-map a field (a birth date can land on the wrong person). Verify names, dates, and amounts against the original document.

Guide 2 · Route labeled fields with one tap

The app handles: reading the label next to each value, suggesting the right destination, recording payer/payee on support orders, and adding court dates to the timeline. You must do yourself: tap the chip that matches the original document — a label can sit in the wrong column on a messy scan. When in doubt, open the ⋯ list and choose deliberately.

Guide 3 · Generate a CourtBuddy form (guided or manual)

The app handles: merging your saved data, organizing fields, the print package. You must do yourself: fill in what’s missing truthfully, have an Ontario lawyer review the form before you rely on it, and print/file/serve it yourself — CourtBuddy never files anything with any court.

Guide 4 · Draft an Offer to Settle

The app handles: the Rule 18 formality checklist, the clause library, the offered-vs-guideline comparison, costs-protection information (Rule 24(12)–(13)), and the draft formatting. You must do yourself: decide the terms, get independent legal advice before serving, and serve the offer yourself — the app does not send, serve, or file anything.

Guide 5 · Send & Share a package

The app handles: assembling the addressed package, encrypting the share file, drafting the cover letter, keeping the log. You must do yourself: send it from your own mail app (CourtBuddy never sends email), or print and serve it yourself. Sharing is informational only — it is not service of process and does not replace the Family Law Rules service requirements.

Guide 6 · Back up and restore your case (encrypted export/import)

The app handles: encrypting the package, verifying integrity on import, assigning a safe new case ID. You must do yourself: keep the backup file and your password — lose either and the backup is useless. Test nothing is automatic: no backup happens unless you export.

Guide 7 · Change your password

The app handles: re-deriving your encryption keys and re-securing your account. You must do yourself: remember the new password — there is deliberately no recovery path if you lose it.

Guide 8 · Blur the screen in a hurry (privacy blur)

The app handles: hiding the screen instantly. You must do yourself: remember blur is not a lock — the session is still open underneath. Use Lock now or Lock & sign out when you leave the device.

Guide 9 · Pick a colour theme

The app handles: applying the theme instantly; your choice is stored on your device only. You must do yourself: nothing — themes are cosmetic and never touch your data.

Guide 10 · Deadline reminders

The app handles: checking reminders on load, regenerating affected surfaces automatically. You must do yourself: open the app regularly and keep your own calendar — CourtBuddy sends no emails, no push notifications, and runs no background jobs, so it cannot remind you when it’s closed.

Guide 11 · Record incidents in the Chronicle and build a SafePath safety plan

The app handles: organizing incidents into a timeline, drafting facts-only affidavit paragraphs from your words, scoring screens and assessments, storing everything encrypted in your case (zero-knowledge). You must do yourself: write facts in your own words and review every drafted paragraph before swearing an affidavit; build and keep your safety plan current; reach out to the listed helplines and services yourself — CourtBuddy cannot contact anyone for you.

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Module guides — the current build

⚖ Ontario law as of 2026-10-02. These guides cover how the newest modules work — features, not law. Legal information only — not legal advice. Verify every procedure against official sources and talk to a licensed Ontario lawyer or legal clinic.

Short guides for the newest workspace modules. Every screenshot in this section is a genuine capture of the current release, taken with a fictional case (“Rivera (fictional)”). The tab names below are the real button labels in the app.

1 · Email verification at sign-up (no email ever sent)

When you create an account, CourtBuddy checks that your email address looks real and can receive mail — without sending you anything. The checks are: strict address format, a “Did you mean …?” prompt when a common typo is detected (confirm or correct), a check that the domain has working mail servers (MX record), a block on throwaway/disposable addresses, and a soft warning for role addresses like admin@ or noreply@.

The honest limit: these checks confirm the address is receivable — they cannot prove you own the mailbox, and the sign-up screen says so: “We check that your address looks real and its domain can receive mail. CourtBuddy never sends email — this can't prove you own the mailbox.” The server never sends email: no confirmations, no reminders, no newsletters, no password resets. Treat any email claiming to be CourtBuddy about your case as suspicious.

2 · Access calendar — the year at a glance

Open your case → the 🗓 Access calendar tab → the Access Calendar Generator. Three ways to start:

The calendar understands Canadian occasions — Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, the Civic Holiday, Thanksgiving, March Break, the Christmas school break, and more — with alternating-year holidays, per-day notes, and exchange times. Print the year for your records: the printout carries the Ontario CourtBuddy brand mark on page one.

3 · The calculators suite

The Calculators tab holds the full suite, all free with no account:

• Child support — Federal Child Support Guidelines table amounts by income, number of children, and parenting arrangement; section 7 add-ons; split/shared options; income modelling (Schedule III adjustments, section 19 add-backs, self-employment cash-flow adjustments, non-taxable benefits such as the Ontario Trillium Benefit grossed up). Modelling inputs are estimates only — courts decide what counts.
• Spousal support — advisory-guideline ranges with the inputs shown so the range can be reproduced.
• Net family property — each spouse's assets, debts, valuation-date and marriage-date property, exclusions, and the resulting equalization payment.
• Plus: lump-sum, undue-hardship, insurance-needs, and support-restructuring models.

Inside a case you can save results (with inputs preserved) and compare up to four what-if scenarios per calculator. Calculators are research tools — verify every figure against the official tables before relying on it in negotiation, mediation, or court.

4 · Action items & SWOT

The Action items tab is your per-case to-do list: a title, high/medium/low priority, an optional due date (wired into the reminder system), an optional link to a case area (a form, a document, an email draft, a tab, or a URL), notes, and a checkbox. Filter by Open / Completed / All and by priority.

The SWOT tab is a litigation-strategy tool: it auto-drafts a four-quadrant analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) from your live case data, then you edit everything — add, edit, delete, and reorder items in each quadrant. Auto-seeded items are marked “suggested” and removable; your own items are never touched by suggestion refreshes. Everything is stored encrypted in your case.

5 · Reunify — the reunification planner

The 🤝 Reunify tab is a guided planner for re-establishing parenting time with an absent parent where there are no substantial safety concerns — absence due to distance, work, prior conflict, or drift, not violence or abuse. A mandatory safety gate is the first screen: if there are safety concerns, this tool is not the right one.

Inside: a template gallery, a readiness assessment, a phased plan builder (the core), professional-support guidance, a progress log, child-centred guidance, and a setback protocol for when things stall. It finishes with a formal “Proposal to Re-establish Parenting Time” document (the “Reunification Package — Proposal + Plan”) and a print package. The app handles: structuring the plan, the proposal document, the print package. You must do yourself: have a clinician, lawyer, or reunification professional review the plan — this is a planning aid, not professional advice.

6 · Child welfare — the concerns log

The 🧒 Child welfare tab is a responsible documentation tool: it helps a parent systematically record observations about the other parent's conduct that may not be conducive to the children's best interests — to bring to a CAS worker, an OCL clinician, a therapist, or a lawyer.

Two design rules keep it responsible: the log uses descriptive behavioral categories, never diagnostic labels, and the professional draws the conclusions — the tool says so everywhere the categories appear. You can print a concerns report for the professional. It is a record-keeping aid, not a weapon, and not a finding about anyone.

7 · Reminders — in-app only, by design

The Reminders & follow-ups panel (on the dashboard and wired into action items, deadlines, and tasks) checks when you open the app or a case — and only then. CourtBuddy sends no emails, no push notifications, and runs no background jobs: there is nothing to send them, by design (the server sends no email, ever). Reminders and follow-ups are stored encrypted in your case, never on the server.

The app handles: checking what's upcoming (next 30 days, overdue included) each time you open it. You must do yourself: open the app regularly and keep your own calendar — CourtBuddy cannot remind you when it is closed. Do not rely on the app alone for court deadlines.

8 · Comms — the co-parent email generator + BIFF checker

The Comms tab holds the Co-Parent Email Generator: pick a situation and it drafts an amicable, cordial, child-centred message — a draft generator only. CourtBuddy never sends email; the only outbound path is a mailto: prefill that opens your own mail app, where you review it and press send yourself.

Every template has 7 escalation levels: higher levels state factual next steps (cure deadlines, enforcement steps) — they never threaten, harass, insult, or coerce, and they still invite agreement. A BIFF check (Brief, Informative, Friendly, Firm) scans every draft, including enforcement drafts, and flags language worth softening. The app handles: the draft, the escalation ladder, the BIFF scan. You must do yourself: read the draft, fix anything that doesn't sound like you, and send it yourself.

9 · Batched directory printing

The Community Directory's 🖨️ Printing batches dialog handles large result lists without choking your printer: results print in batches of 30 (the default), and the dialog walks you through each batch — “Printing batch 1 of 5…”, and so on. After a quick-print quota, a short math security check appears before the next batch. Everything prints from your browser; nothing is uploaded.

10 · Form Repository front door — browse forms without opening a case

The 📁 Form Repository button on the Your cases dashboard opens the full built-in library — all 104 CourtBuddy-native templates — without any case open. Search by form number or title, filter by form-number family (applications, motions, financial statements, conferences, disclosure, witnesses, and more), and read each form's “use this when…” guidance card.

Picking a template with no case open never strands you: it prompts you to choose an existing case or start the new-case flow, then opens the form inside that case. Uploads stay per-case in your encrypted case data.

11 · Dashboard customization

Make the dashboard yours. Each customizable element — wallpaper, widget layout, news feeds, clock, quick-access dock, and welcome text — has both an Auto mode and a Custom mode, and you pick per element. Switching Auto → Custom never loses data: your custom choices are stored separately and restored if you switch back.

These are device-level preferences; the case-linked widgets still read only your encrypted case. Nothing you customize changes your data or leaves your device.

12 · Mission Control — the next-steps hub

The 🎛 Mission tab (plus a compact widget on your dashboard) is your case's next-steps hub: suggested steps computed client-side from your encrypted case data — no new server endpoints, no network calls — alongside custom steps you add yourself. Mark suggestions done, dismiss the ones that don't fit (with a reason), and arrange the layout: reorder sections, hide the ones you don't use, collapse the rest.

The app handles: surfacing what's next, tracking what's done, remembering your layout. You must do yourself: decide what actually matters — suggestions are prompts from your own data, not legal advice.

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Support calculators

⚖ Ontario law as of 2026-10-02. Legal information only — not legal advice. Verify against official sources: Ontario laws · Ontario Court Forms · Federal laws.

Ontario CourtBuddy includes child support, spousal support, net family property (equalization), lump-sum, undue-hardship, insurance-needs, and support-restructuring calculators. They are free with no account from the home page; inside a case, results can be saved to the case (encrypted) with their inputs, and up to four what-if scenarios per calculator can be compared.

• Child support — table amounts by income, number of children, and parenting arrangement, plus section 7 (special/expense) add-ons.
• Spousal support — advisory-guidelines ranges with the inputs shown so the range can be reproduced.
• Net family property — each spouse’s assets, debts, valuation-date and marriage-date property, exclusions, and the resulting equalization payment.
• What-if scenarios — duplicate any saved calculation, change one input, and compare outcomes side by side.

Court forms & workflows

⚖ Ontario law as of 2026-10-02. Legal information only — not legal advice. Verify against official sources: Ontario laws · Ontario Court Forms · Federal laws.

The Forms tab provides guided worksheets and checklists for the Ontario Family Law Rules forms most people need — applications, financial statements (Forms 13 / 13.1), motions, affidavits, and divorce paperwork — plus disclosure tracking, offer-to-settle drafting tools, deadline checklists, and filing-package assembly. The Quick intake feature can read an uploaded PDF or Word document and detect which official form it is, then pre-fill matching fields.

Official forms live on the official site

Court forms are Crown copyright material published by the Ministry of the Attorney General. Ontario CourtBuddy links to the official forms — it never re-hosts or republishes court PDFs or Word files. Workflow buttons open the official Family Law Rules table in a new tab, where you download the current version directly from the source:

• Ontario Court Forms — Family Law Rules table (English) ↗
• Formules des Règles en matière de droit de la famille (français) ↗
• Ontario Court Dates — daily Superior Court and Ontario Court of Justice lists ↗

Because the official site blocks embedding (X-Frame-Options), CourtBuddy opens forms in a new tab rather than inside the app. Always download the form on the day you fill it in — revisions replace the file, and an old copy may be out of date.

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Resources: legal information & help

⚖ Ontario law as of 2026-10-02. Legal information only — not legal advice. These are independent resources, not affiliated with CourtBuddy. What each one is for, in one line:

• CanLII ↗ — what it’s for: reading the actual cases, statutes, and regulations behind a legal position, free.
• OpenCase ↗ — what it’s for: asking plain-language legal questions and getting answers grounded in real cases and statutes (a starting point, not advice — verify against the primary sources).
• Legal Aid Ontario ↗ — what it’s for: free or low-cost legal help if you qualify financially; also funds duty counsel at courthouses. 1-800-668-8258.
• Family Law Information Centres (FLICs) ↗ — what it’s for: free in-courthouse help understanding separation/divorce, court forms, court process, and referrals to local services (information, not legal advice).
• 211 Ontario ↗ — what it’s for: referrals to community and social services across Ontario, in 150+ languages; dial 2-1-1, free and confidential.
• Steps to Justice ↗ — what it’s for: CLEO’s plain-language family-law Q&A and Guided Pathways. Linked only — their content stays on their site; CourtBuddy never embeds or republishes it.

The app footer also carries the Indigenous land acknowledgement with a link to native-land.ca ↗ (explore Indigenous territories).

Safety & protection

⚖ Ontario law as of 2026-10-02. Legal information only — not legal advice. Verify against official sources: Ontario laws · Ontario Court Forms · Federal laws.

Restraining orders vs. peace bonds — at a glance

The app’s Safety tab includes a step-by-step wizard that asks four questions and points you to the right tool — restraining order, peace bond, or other remedy — plus plain-language guides, a safety-planning checklist, and tech-safety notes (location sharing, shared accounts, browser history). Nothing in the wizard is saved unless you choose to save it, and the quick-exit button is always visible.

Crisis lines — free, confidential, 24/7 unless noted

Quick exit takes you to a neutral site — it cannot erase your browser history. Use private/incognito browsing for sensitive searches, and consider a safety plan with a helpline if someone monitors your devices.

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Community Directory & Housing Registry

Both directories are public — no account needed — from the home page or inside the case workspace. They are static, compiled datasets: searchable, printable, and free.

Ontario Community Directory — 2,088 verified listings

Compiled October 1, 2026 from the merged community-directory dataset (the owner's directory projects plus municipal and agency sources). Seventeen searchable sections, with their own section for legal clinics:

• Shelters — 499 listings. Some addresses are confidential by design; call the intake line — addresses are withheld for safety.
• Hospitals — 244 listings.
• Police — 189 listings.
• Victim services — 124 listings.
• Children's aid — 50 societies, including section 125 reporting duty information.
• Food banks — 126 listings.
• Legal clinics — 68 listings.
• Mental health — 96 listings.
• Community health — 104 listings.
• Housing help — 126 listings.
• Drop-ins — 111 listings.
• Basic needs — 127 listings.
• Settlement — 38 listings.
• Income support — 72 listings.
• Addiction & harm reduction — 34 listings.
• Advocacy & rights — 54 listings.
• Family supports — 26 listings.

Plus 36 crisis lines. A quick-exit button and printable result lists are built in. Call ahead before going — hours, intake rules, and availability change.

Ontario Housing Registry Directory — all 47 service managers

All 47 Housing Services Act service managers/DSSABs (37 municipal + 10 District Social Services Administration Boards, per O. Reg. 367/11 Schedule 2): how to join the waitlist, how to apply for rent-geared-to-income (RGI), eligibility rules, income and asset limits, priority categories, reported wait times, and sources for each entry.

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Security & privacy

Ontario CourtBuddy is built on a simple idea: the server should never be able to read your case. Encryption happens in your browser with the Web Crypto API; the server stores ciphertext, encrypted key envelopes, account identifiers, and authentication verifiers — never readable case contents or plaintext case keys.

The actual primitives

• Password → encryption key (in your browser): PBKDF2-SHA-256 with 5,000,000 iterations and a 128-bit random salt per account. This is key derivation — it turns your password into the key that encrypts your case data locally. It never leaves your browser.
• Password verifier (on the server): Argon2id (128 MiB memory, 6 passes, 2 threads). The server stores only this one-way verifier — never your password and never your encryption key. Sign-in still sends your password to the server over HTTPS for this check, so a compromised server could attempt offline guessing against weak passwords — another reason to choose a long password.
• Case data: each case gets a fresh random 256-bit AES-GCM key; every encrypted payload gets a fresh 96-bit IV. AES-GCM provides authenticated encryption — tampered ciphertext fails to decrypt rather than decrypting to garbage.
• Multi-user cases: each account has an RSA-OAEP/SHA-256 (2048-bit) keypair. The private key is encrypted locally with your password-derived key. Inviting someone wraps the case key to their public key — the plaintext case key exists only in browser memory while unlocked.
• Transport & headers: HTTPS in production, plus restrictive security headers and a content security policy.
• Bot protection on signup: a randomized math challenge instead of a third-party CAPTCHA, so no external service sees your signup.

Honest limitations

• No password reset is possible — ever. There is no backup key, admin decryption key, or recovery token. Losing your password means losing access to your encrypted data. This is the price of the server not being able to read your data.
• Your account email is visible to the server. Case contents are encrypted, but the email you sign up with is necessarily known to the server (and it appears in server logs and backups).
• Authentication is not fully password-blind. The server holds a conventional password verifier, so a compromised server could attempt offline guessing against weak passwords — another reason to choose a long password.
• A compromised browser or device defeats encryption. While a case is unlocked, its contents exist in browser memory. Malware, a malicious browser extension, or someone looking over your shoulder can see what the server cannot.
• No independent security audit or penetration test has been performed on this software. The design is documented openly so it can be reviewed, but it has not been certified by anyone.

We describe the cryptography in plain terms on purpose — standard published primitives, stated honestly, with no inflated marketing claims.

Honest stack limits — what CourtBuddy cannot do

Backups, printing & exports

• Encrypted backup — from the Overview tab, “Encrypted backup” downloads courtbuddy-encrypted-case-backup.json: your case data encrypted with your case key. It is unreadable without your account password. Store it somewhere safe (and private); it is your lifeline across the delete-and-reinstall upgrade process.
• Restore — there is no in-app one-click restore in this version: a backup is re-imported through the normal case-creation and unlock flow. Keep both the backup file and your password.
• Printing — the Community Directory prints result lists; the Safety tab offers safe print, which hides the Safety tab and the crisis bar from the printed page so a printout cannot reveal that you were reading protection-order information.
• Never upload plaintext exports to untrusted storage. Anything you print or export outside the encrypted backup is readable by whoever holds it.

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Troubleshooting

Real problems, real fixes. If none of these fit, lock the workspace and start from the dashboard — most transient issues clear on a fresh load.

“My workspace locked unexpectedly.”

Why it happens: the workspace locks when you press Lock now or Lock & sign out, when the session expires, or after idle time. This is a safety feature, not a bug.

The fix: enter your account password on the lock screen — the workspace re-opens exactly where you were. If the password isn’t accepted, you are almost certainly mis-typing it (check caps lock and keyboard language); there is no password reset, by design — see FAQ. Prevention: keep your password in a password manager and keep a current encrypted backup (Guide 5 above), so a worst case is recoverable.

“‘Updated just now’ isn’t appearing.”

Why it happens: the automation cascade regenerates a surface only when data it depends on actually changed and was saved. A stamp that doesn’t move usually means nothing it depends on changed — the app is correct, not stuck.

The fix: (1) confirm the change was saved in the case (look for the save confirmation, not just the typed text); (2) switch to the affected tab and wait a few seconds; (3) reload the page. If the stamp still shows an older time, the underlying data didn’t change — nothing is wrong.

“The upload analysis looks wrong.”

Why it happens: the document reader is heuristic — it guesses. Names with unusual formats, amounts written as words, and multi-column layouts are the usual suspects. Scanned/image PDFs (photos of pages) contain no selectable text at all.

The fix: (1) in the review tray, check the confidence % on each row — low-confidence rows are there for your decision; (2) fix the target dropdown (a birth date can land on the wrong person — change “Matter → respondent DOB” to the right person) or edit the value directly; (3) Dismiss / Keep current on wrong rows; (4) for scanned PDFs, paste the text manually into “Or paste document text” and re-run; (5) re-analyze after fixing the source text. Never apply rows you haven’t read.

“The print package is blank (or nothing opened).”

Why it happens: print packages open in an in-page preview (not a new window), and generators require the lawyer-review acknowledgement gate before printing. If the preview is blank, you skipped a required step — the package only includes completed sections.

The fix: (1) complete all required fields and the ack checkbox in the generator first; (2) in the preview, click 🖨 Print / Save PDF to open your browser’s print dialog (choose Save as PDF there); (3) close the preview with the ✕ Close button, the backdrop, or Esc — printing closes the preview automatically. If the preview itself never appears, reload the page and try again.

“My export file won’t import.”

Why it happens: import verifies integrity before writing anything and refuses the file with a specific reason: “not a CourtBuddy encrypted package” (wrong file picked), version mismatch (exported from a newer app version than the one importing), or missing/truncated encrypted data (incomplete download or corrupted file). Packages are also keyed to your account’s encryption keys — they cannot be opened by another account or without your password.

The fix: (1) re-export from the Overview → Import / export card; (2) let the download finish fully, then import again; (3) import into the same or a newer version of the app, signed in as the same account that exported it. If it still refuses, the file is corrupted — export a fresh one from the working session before it’s gone.

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Frequently asked questions

⚖ Ontario law as of 2026-10-02. Legal information only — not legal advice. Verify against official sources: Ontario laws · Ontario Court Forms · Federal laws.

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Glossary

⚖ Ontario law as of 2026-10-02. Legal information only — not legal advice. Verify against official sources: Ontario laws · Ontario Court Forms · Federal laws.

Applicant / Respondent

The person who starts a court case (applicant) and the person who responds to it (respondent).

Case conference

An early, informal meeting with a judge to identify issues and explore settlement. Many motions require one first, unless urgency excuses it (Family Law Rules 14(4.2)).

Child Support Guidelines

The federal regulation setting table amounts of child support by payor income, number of children, and province.

CLRA

Children’s Law Reform Act (Ontario) — covers decision-making responsibility, parenting time, contact, and restraining orders (s.35) against any person.

Continuing record

The court file’s organized set of documents; parties add to it as the case proceeds.

Disclosure

The obligation to share complete financial information with the other party — tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, and more.

Equalization (net family property)

The sharing of the growth in net family property during a marriage: each spouse’s NFP is calculated and the spouse with the higher NFP pays half the difference.

FLA

Family Law Act (Ontario) — covers support, property, restraining orders against spouses (s.46), and exclusive possession of the matrimonial home (s.24).

FLR

Family Law Rules (Ontario) — the procedural rules for family cases, including which form to use and when.

Form 13 / 13.1

The Financial Statement: Form 13 for support claims, Form 13.1 for property and support claims. Sworn/affirmed under oath.

Motion to change

A request to change a final order or agreement when there has been a material change in circumstances (Form 15 series).

Offer to settle

A formal written proposal to resolve issues; has cost consequences under the Family Law Rules if unreasonably refused.

Peace bond

A criminal-court order (Criminal Code s.810) requiring a person to “keep the peace” under conditions; at most 12 months, not renewable.

Restraining order

A family-court order restricting contact or proximity; CLRA s.35 (any person) or FLA s.46 (spouse/former spouse/cohabitant); no maximum duration.

RGI

Rent-geared-to-income: subsidized rent set at roughly 30% of household income, administered through local service managers.

Section 7 expenses

Special or extraordinary expenses for children (childcare, medical, post-secondary, etc.) shared in proportion to incomes on top of table support.

Service manager / DSSAB

The municipal or district body that administers housing and homelessness services, including RGI waitlists, under the Housing Services Act.

Without notice (ex parte) motion

A motion heard without telling the other side first, allowed only where urgency or risk justifies it; the other side is told afterwards and can respond.

Zero-knowledge storage

An architecture where the server stores only ciphertext it cannot decrypt — so it also cannot recover your password or your data.

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Terms of Service summary

The full, binding document is the Terms of Service, Waiver, Indemnification and Hold Harmless Agreement. In plain language, it says:

• Research purposes only. The app is provided strictly for research, educational, and informational purposes — not legal advice. Calculations and documents are approximations that must not be relied on without independent review by a licensed Ontario lawyer.
• Waiver and release. You use the app at your own risk and release the operators from claims arising from that use, including reliance on its outputs.
• Indemnification — hold harmless. You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless emergencyhousing.ca and the other released parties against claims, damages, and costs (including legal fees) connected with your use of the app or your violation of the agreement. This survives termination.
• Limited liability. The full Terms of Service set out the liability limits that apply; read them at terms.html before relying on the app.
• Ontario law, Ontario courts. The agreement is governed by the laws of Ontario, with exclusive jurisdiction in Ontario.
• No warranty. The app is provided as-is, without warranties of accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any purpose.

You accept these terms when you create an account. This summary is not the agreement — read the full Terms before signing up.

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