Divorce financial planning is the work of finding out what a separation will actually cost each of you, after tax and over time, before you sign anything. In Ontario that means four things: a full picture of what you own and owe, a property division that follows the Family Law Act‘s equalization rules, support figures that both households can live on, and a comparison of the divorce settlement options that shows the after-tax value of each, not just the headline split. A Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA) does that work. A lawyer tells you what you’re entitled to; a CDFA tells you what each version of the deal is worth, and whether you can afford the one you’re about to accept.

I’m Ken Maynard, an accredited family mediator (AP.fm) and CDFA. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t give legal advice. Since 2010 I’ve run the numbers for Ontario couples two ways: for one spouse who wants to know what an offer really means, and as a neutral for both spouses inside mediation. This page is the hub for the money side of separation on this site. It explains what a CDFA does and doesn’t do, how the Settlement Stress Test works, what it costs, and where each money question is answered in detail. If your question is about the legal side of the divorce process or the cost of a divorce itself, start with the cost of divorce in Ontario page instead.

Why the numbers need their own professional

Most Ontario settlements are negotiated on one number: the equalization payment. It’s the right number to start with, because section 5(1) of the Family Law Act says the spouse with the lower net family property is entitled to one-half the difference. It’s the wrong number to finish on, because it treats every dollar as the same dollar. The Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts uses a plain example: a couple splits everything 50/50, but one spouse’s half is taxable and the other’s isn’t, and the first spouse ends up about $18,000 worse off. I see the Ontario version of that most weeks: an RRSP matched against a TFSA, a pension’s gross Family Law Value matched against cash, a home buyout priced without the land transfer tax, the legal fees, or the mortgage qualification that turns out to be impossible on one income.

The second problem is time. An offer that looks fair on the day of signing can leave one household short in year three, when the support steps down, the children’s expenses climb, or the mortgage renews at a higher rate. A projection five, ten and twenty years out, built on stated assumptions about income, inflation and returns, is the only way to see that before it happens. Nobody else in the process builds one: lawyers aren’t trained to, and investment advisors are paid on assets, not on settlements.

What a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst (CDFA) does

The CDFA designation is granted by the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts, which runs a Canadian program covering Canadian tax, pension and family law rules. The Institute describes the role as helping the client and the lawyer understand how the financial decisions made today will affect the client’s financial future. To hold it you need a bachelor’s degree, at least three years of professional experience in finance or divorce, a passing exam, and 24 hours of continuing education plus two hours of ethics every two years. It’s a specialty, not a licence: in Ontario no regulator oversees divorce financial analysis the way the Law Society oversees lawyers, which is one reason to ask any analyst how they’re paid and whom they’re working for.

In practice the work falls into four groups. The list below is adapted from my own client guide to the twenty ways a CDFA helps, trimmed to what matters in Ontario.

Understand the financial picture

• Get a clear picture of what you own and owe. Organize the assets, debts, income and expenses so the discussion starts from a shared set of numbers, in the shape the court’s Form 13 and 13.1 financial statements require.
• Translate the statements. Pension statements, business financials, investment reports and the settlement calculations, explained in plain language so both spouses can take part.
• Find what’s missing. Review the records and bank statements, flag the gaps and inconsistencies that can point to hidden assets, and list what needs clarifying before anyone makes a decision. Under Ontario law an agreement made without full financial disclosure can be set aside later, so this step protects the deal as much as the people.
• Separate the urgent from the important. Housing and this month’s cash flow on one side; retirement, the children’s education and the pension on the other.

Make informed property and debt decisions

• Compare ways of dividing the assets. Keeping, selling or trading a particular asset has consequences beyond its stated value. The equalization payment calculator gives you the starting point; the analysis shows what each way of paying it costs.
• Show why equal dollars aren’t equal value. Tax, access restrictions, income potential and carrying costs differ between a TFSA, an RRSP, a locked-in pension transfer and home equity.
• Test whether keeping the home is affordable. Beyond the mortgage: property tax, insurance, maintenance, the buyout financing and whether the bank will lend on one income. The matrimonial home buyout calculator runs the first pass.
• Analyze pension and retirement-asset options. What a proposed division or trade of pension value does to each spouse’s income at 65, with the tax discount applied to the gross Family Law Value that FSRA’s guide to pensions and marriage breakdown warns about.
• Evaluate the debt arrangements. How each allocation of debt and repayment lands in each budget.

Plan for life in two households

• Build realistic post-separation budgets for each spouse, with the post-divorce budget worksheet as the template.
• Find the cash-flow shortfall before you sign. Test whether the proposed mix of income, support, assets and expenses actually meets each household’s needs.
• Model the support proposals. What different amounts and durations of spousal support do to the recipient’s budget and the payor’s capacity, without replacing legal advice about entitlement.
• Compare lump sum and monthly support. Cash flow, tax treatment (periodic support is deductible to the payor and taxable to the recipient; a lump sum generally isn’t) and the problem of making a lump sum last.
• Plan for the children’s future costs. Section 7 expenses and post-secondary costs go into the projection, not just this year’s expenses.
• Review the insurance. Whether existing coverage and the proposed life insurance and support arrangements fit the new structure, and what happens to health insurance and health benefits during separation.

Test the settlement before committing

• Identify the tax implications. How taxes change the practical value of a property division or a support arrangement: the RRSP rollover on Form T2220, the principal residence designation after a written separation agreement, who ends up carrying the capital gains on a cottage or rental property that rolls over at cost, who can claim the amount for an eligible dependant, the CCB recalculation.
• Compare settlement proposals side by side. Competing offers translated into the same financial scenario so the trade-offs are visible. Our page on how to read a settlement offer shows the format.
• Project the longer-term outcome. Five, ten and twenty years, using stated assumptions, not guarantees.
• Give the lawyers and the mediator something to work with. Calculations, explanations and projections that let both spouses and their advisors evaluate workable options instead of trading headline totals.

What a CDFA doesn’t do

Three things, and they matter because people arrive expecting all of them.

• Legal advice. A CDFA can’t tell you what you’re entitled to, whether a clause is enforceable, or whether to sign. That’s your lawyer’s job, and every agreement I draft in mediation goes to each spouse’s own lawyer for independent legal advice before it’s signed.
• Formal valuations. A pension’s Family Law Value comes from the plan administrator; a business valuation comes from a Chartered Business Valuator; a home appraisal from an appraiser. The CDFA coordinates those, checks them against each other, and applies the tax to them. Our business valuation in divorce page explains when a formal valuation is needed.
• Investment management. A CDFA doesn’t sell products or manage the money afterward. That separation is deliberate: the analysis shouldn’t be influenced by what happens to the assets after the deal.

One more distinction, and it’s the one the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts itself stresses: neutrality isn’t automatic. A CDFA retained by one spouse works for that spouse. A CDFA working as a financial neutral for both spouses, as I do inside mediation, owes the same duty to each and says so in writing before the work starts. Ask which one you’re getting.

Lawyer, CDFA, investment advisor: who does what

Task	Family lawyer	CDFA	Investment advisor
Tells you your legal rights and obligations	Yes	No	No
Drafts and signs off the separation agreement	Yes (ILA)	No; drafts in mediation, lawyers review	No
Values a pension, business or home for equalization	Refers out	Coordinates the valuations and applies the tax	Rarely
Shows the after-tax value of each settlement option	Sometimes	Yes, the core job	Sometimes
Projects cash flow five, ten and twenty years out	No	Yes	Yes, for investments
Builds the two-household budget	No	Yes	Sometimes
Works for one spouse	Yes	Yes	Yes
Works as a neutral for both spouses	No	Yes, in mediation	No
Manages your investments afterward	No	No	Yes
Regulated by	Law Society of Ontario	IDFA code of ethics; no Ontario regulator for CDFA professionals	Securities and insurance regulators

The three aren’t rivals. In a well-run file the lawyer handles rights and the agreement, the CDFA handles the numbers and the projections, and the investment advisor takes over once the assets have been split. The expensive mistake is asking one of them to do another’s job: a lawyer running settlement scenarios at $400 an hour (see what a family lawyer charges), or an investment advisor advising on a settlement that will move assets under their management.

Ontario’s rules in one page

The detail lives on the linked pages; this is the frame.

• Equalization, not division. Ontario doesn’t split title to each asset. Each spouse calculates net family property (what they own on the separation date, minus debts, minus what they brought into the marriage), and the spouse with the higher figure pays half the difference (Family Law Act s. 5(1)). Gifts and inheritances received during the marriage from a third party are excluded if kept separate, except where they went into the matrimonial home (s. 4(2)). A court departs from an equal split only where equalizing would be unconscionable (s. 5(6)).
• The clock. An equalization claim must be brought within six years of separation or two years of the divorce, whichever comes first (s. 7(3)). Couples who separate and drift sometimes discover this the expensive way.
• Pensions. The plan administrator calculates a Family Law Value on application. The FSRA fee caps are $200 for a defined contribution plan, $600 for a defined benefit plan and $800 for a combined plan, plus HST, and the statement comes within 60 days. No more than half the Family Law Value can be used to satisfy an equalization payment, and a member who hasn’t retired transfers it as a locked-in lump sum, never cash. The gross value is before tax; the discount for tax is where a CDFA earns the fee. Details on the pension valuation and division page, and CPP credit splitting is a separate federal process.
• Registered accounts. RRSPs and RRIFs, the retirement accounts most couples hold, can move between spouses on separation without tax using Form T2220, under a written agreement or court order. TFSAs have their own rules. DPSPs are often missed on the disclosure.
• The home. The matrimonial home is treated differently from every other asset: its date-of-marriage value can’t be deducted, and a spouse who owned it before the marriage doesn’t get that credit. Each spouse can designate a different principal residence for the years they live apart under a written separation agreement, which is what makes a clean buyout possible.
• Support and tax. Child support is neither deductible nor taxable. Periodic spousal support is deductible to the payor and taxable to the recipient when paid under a written agreement or order registered with the CRA (CRA’s support payments page). A parent who pays child support can’t claim the amount for an eligible dependant for that child, which changes the real cost of a shared-parenting arrangement by a few thousand dollars a year.
• Common-law couples. Equalization doesn’t apply; property claims rest on trust law. Spousal support, child support and CPP credit splitting do apply.

The Settlement Stress Test: what you get and what it costs

The Settlement Stress Test is the settlement analysis I run for a spouse, or for both spouses in mediation. It takes the proposed terms (or two or three competing versions), your disclosure, and the assumptions we agree on, and produces a written report with:

• The net family property calculation and the equalization payment, with each spouse’s exclusions and deductions shown.
• Each settlement option restated at after-tax value, asset by asset, so an RRSP dollar, a TFSA dollar, a pension dollar and a home-equity dollar are compared on the same footing.
• A two-household cash-flow budget for year one, with support in and out, the CCB and the tax credits recalculated.
• A projection of each spouse’s net worth and cash flow at five, ten and twenty years, with the assumptions stated so your lawyer can challenge them.
• The weak points: the shortfall year, the mortgage that won’t qualify, the pension transfer that locks money you’ll need at 55, the support clause with no retirement term.
• A one-page summary for each lawyer.

Retained by one spouse: $2,500 plus HST, flat, for the analysis and a review meeting. Most clients bring it to their lawyer or to the negotiation table; some bring it to mediation with someone else. In mediation: it’s built into the mediation process at no extra fee; both of you see the same numbers in the room, which is usually where the settlement gets made. Our fees for mediation are on the what mediation costs page, and the Certified Divorce Financial Analyst service page is where you book the one-spouse version. Settlement analysis is advisory; your lawyer gives the legal advice on the result.

Every money question, and where it’s answered

This site has a page for each piece. Use this as the index.

Question	What the page covers	Where
Dividing property	How equalization works, what’s excluded, the six-year limit	equalization payment calculator
The house	Keep, sell or buy out; what a buyout costs after tax	matrimonial home buyout calculator; keep, sell or buy out the matrimonial home
Pensions	The Family Law Value, the 50 per cent cap, FSRA’s fee caps	pension valuation and division
CPP	Splitting pensionable earnings after separation	CPP credit splitting
RRSPs, TFSAs, DPSPs	Why equal face value isn’t equal after-tax value; T2220 rollovers	RRSPs in divorce; TFSAs in divorce; DPSPs in separation
A business	What a business is worth for equalization and how it’s valued	business valuation in divorce
Spousal support	The Guidelines, tax treatment, lump sums, when it’s denied	calculating spousal support; when spousal support is denied, reduced or ended
Child support and expenses	Table amounts, section 7 expenses, shared parenting	child support; section 7 expenses
Tax credits and benefits	Who claims the children; the CCB after separation	amount for an eligible dependant; Canada Child Benefit after separation
Insurance and benefits	Securing support with life insurance; health benefits after the split	life insurance and support; health benefits during separation
Disclosure	What to gather, Forms 13 and 13.1, the self-employed version	financial disclosure; Form 13 and 13.1 financial statements; disclosure when you’re self-employed
Cash flow	The first-year budget for two households, with the worksheet	post-divorce budget worksheet
Reading an offer	What a settlement proposal does and doesn’t tell you	how to read a settlement offer
Enforcement	What happens to support payments once they’re ordered	Family Responsibility Office

Where to start

1. Take the Divorce Financial Readiness Indicator. A short questionnaire across the areas that decide a settlement (pensions, the home, cash flow, tax, insurance, debts, the business), with feedback on each. It’s free, and it tells you which of the pages above you need first. Start with the Divorce Financial Readiness Indicator.
2. Gather the disclosure. Three years of tax returns and notices of assessment, pay stubs, every account statement at the separation date and the marriage date, the mortgage, the pension statement, the business financials. The Steps to Justice guided pathway and our financial disclosure page have the lists; a spreadsheet is fine for a private agreement.
3. Decide who’s doing what. Mediation with a CDFA in the room, or two lawyers with a CDFA on one side. Our mediator vs lawyer page lays out the difference and the cost.
4. Run the numbers before the negotiation, not after. Every option on the table should arrive with its after-tax value and its year-five budget attached. That’s the Settlement Stress Test.
5. Get independent legal advice on the result. Then sign, file what needs filing, and update the will, the beneficiaries and the powers of attorney the same month.

Divorce financial planning: your questions answered

What is a Certified Divorce Financial Analyst?

A financial professional trained and certified by the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts to analyze the financial side of a separation: property division, support, tax and long-term projections.

The designation requires a bachelor’s degree, three years of professional experience in finance or divorce, an exam and continuing education every two years, with a Canadian program covering Canadian tax and family law. It’s a specialty, not a licence; a CDFA isn’t a lawyer and doesn’t give legal advice.

Do I need a CDFA if I already have a lawyer?

Your lawyer handles your rights and the agreement; a CDFA handles the after-tax value and the long-term cash flow of each option. Most people whose financial situation includes assets to divide or support to set benefit from both.

A lawyer running settlement scenarios bills at a lawyer’s rate and isn’t trained to project cash flow. A CDFA’s report goes to your lawyer as a tool, and the lawyer’s advice on it is still what you rely on.

Is a CDFA the same as a financial advisor or a financial planner?

No. A CDFA analyzes the settlement; a financial advisor manages money; a financial planner plans the whole financial life. Some people hold more than one designation.

The important question is how each is paid. An advisor paid on assets under management has an interest in where the assets end up. A CDFA working on a flat fee for the analysis doesn’t.

What does divorce financial planning cost?

The Settlement Stress Test is $2,500 plus HST when one spouse retains me, and it’s included at no extra fee inside Soft Landing Mediation.

Other costs on the money side are set by third parties: the pension plan administrator’s Family Law Value fee (capped by FSRA at $200, $600 or $800 plus HST), a home appraisal, and a Chartered Business Valuator’s report if there’s a business.

Can a CDFA work for both of us?

Yes, as a neutral in mediation, with the same duty to each of you set out in writing; outside mediation a CDFA retained by one spouse works for that spouse.

Neutrality isn’t automatic. If both of you are relying on one analyst’s numbers, make sure the engagement says so.

How is property divided in Ontario?

By equalization: each spouse’s net family property is calculated and the spouse with the higher figure pays half the difference. Assets aren’t split one by one.

Gifts and inheritances from third parties during the marriage are excluded if kept separate, but not if they went into the matrimonial home. The home’s date-of-marriage value can’t be deducted. An unequal division happens only where equalizing would be unconscionable. The claim must be brought within six years of separation or two years of divorce.

Can I keep the house?

Only if you can pay the other spouse their share of the equity, qualify for the mortgage on one income, and carry the house on your post-separation budget. Our buyout calculator runs the first pass.

The buyout price should include the costs you avoid by not selling (commission, legal fees) and the ones you take on (land transfer tax if title changes in some structures, refinancing fees). Each spouse can designate a different principal residence for the years apart under a written separation agreement.

How is a pension divided in Ontario?

The plan administrator calculates a Family Law Value on application; up to half of it can be used toward the equalization payment, transferred as a locked-in lump sum if the member hasn’t retired.

FSRA caps the administrator’s fee at $200 for a defined contribution plan, $600 for a defined benefit plan and $800 for a combined plan, plus HST, and the statement arrives within 60 days. The value is gross, before tax; a CDFA applies the tax discount so a pension dollar isn’t traded for a TFSA dollar at par.

Is spousal support taxable?

Periodic spousal support paid under a written agreement or court order registered with the CRA is deductible to the payor and taxable to the recipient; child support is neither.

A lump sum generally isn’t deductible. The tax treatment changes the real cost of a support figure by a quarter to a third, which is why the Settlement Stress Test shows support after tax on both sides.

Who claims the children on their taxes after separation?

A parent who pays child support can’t claim the amount for an eligible dependant for that child; in shared parenting where both pay, only one can claim and only if you agree, otherwise neither does.

The Canada Child Benefit is recalculated on each parent’s income and split in shared parenting arrangements. Both belong in the cash-flow projection, not as an afterthought in April.

What financial information do I have to disclose?

Everything: income, assets, debts and expenses, with documents, at the separation date and the marriage date. The court’s Form 13 (support) or 13.1 (property and support) sets the shape.

Ontario’s Family Law Act lets a court set aside an agreement where a spouse failed to disclose significant assets or debts. A private agreement can use a spreadsheet, but the content is the same.

Does any of this apply if we weren’t married?

Equalization doesn’t; support and CPP credit splitting do.

Common-law partners in Ontario owe and can claim spousal support after three years together (or sooner with a child), and can split CPP credits. Property claims between unmarried partners rest on trust law, which is slower and less predictable; a cohabitation agreement avoids the problem.

This page is general information about divorce financial planning in Ontario, not legal, tax or investment advice. Equalization rules are from Ontario’s Family Law Act (e-Laws, consolidated October 15, 2026); pension rules and fee caps are from FSRA’s guide to pensions and marriage breakdown; tax treatment is from Canada Revenue Agency pages current to 2026; the CDFA designation requirements are from the Institute for Divorce Financial Analysts. DTSW fees are plus HST and current as of October 2026. Ken Maynard is a mediator and financial professional, not a lawyer. Talk to a family lawyer about your own situation.