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A separation agreement is a written contract between spouses that records the decisions of your separation: parenting, child support, spousal support, and the division of property and debt. Signed properly, it is legally binding in BC, and most separating couples never need to go to court.
Section 1
A separation agreement is more than a record of what you decided. It is the document the rest of the world asks for. Banks will not refinance a mortgage, or approve a new one, without a signed agreement showing the financial matters between you are settled. The Land Title Office will not transfer property between spouses without it. Pension administrators will not divide a pension, and financial institutions will not split an RRSP, unless an agreement or court order directs them to.
It is also worth being clear about what a divorce is and is not. A divorce is a court order that ends a marriage, and in Canada it generally follows one year of separation. Your separation agreement is what actually resolves the separation: the parenting, the support, and the property. If you have children, the court will not grant a divorce without being satisfied that reasonable arrangements are in place for them, and your agreement is how you show that.
Without a signed agreement, there is nothing to rely on if commitments stop being kept. Verbal understandings and good intentions do not hold up when circumstances change. The agreement turns your decisions into terms both of you can count on, and both of you can enforce.
This applies whether you were married or in a common-law relationship. If you have children or property together, you need the decisions documented, even when the separation is entirely amicable. Especially then, while goodwill is high and memories agree.
Section 2
A complete separation agreement settles every open question between you, so that nothing important is left to memory or goodwill. In BC, that means the agreement works through six areas.
Who you are, your children, your relationship dates, and the foundations the agreement stands on.
Parenting responsibilities, communication and decision-making, parenting time, holidays, and travel.
Monthly support and how special or extraordinary expenses are shared.
Whether support is paid, how much, for how long, and on what terms.
The family residence, pensions, RRSPs, accounts, vehicles, debts, and the equalization payment.
The conclusions that finalize the agreement, release further claims, and make it signable.
BC law requires both spouses to provide complete, honest financial disclosure: every source of income, every asset, every debt. Your agreement documents your full financial picture at separation. This is not paperwork for its own sake. An agreement built on incomplete information can be challenged and potentially set aside later, which undoes the certainty the agreement existed to create.
BC family law starts from the principle that property acquired during the relationship is shared equally between spouses, with specific rules about what counts as excluded property. Property means everything you own and owe: the home, vehicles, accounts, investments, pensions, and debts. Understanding how property is characterized before you negotiate is what keeps the division fair and the agreement durable.
Child support and spousal support serve different purposes and are calculated differently. Child support follows the Federal Child Support Guidelines, based on income and the number of children. Spousal support has its own analysis under the Spousal Support Advisory Guidelines, based on your incomes and circumstances. Divii runs both calculations for you and writes the results into the clauses.
If you are weighing a do-it-yourself document, our guide to separation agreement templates in BC explains what a template does and does not do for each of these areas.
Section 3
There are two broad paths: make the decisions yourselves with the right support, or hand the negotiation to two lawyers. Situations differ, a short relationship with few shared assets, a family with children and a home, a file with a business or a defined-benefit pension, and the level of support you choose should match yours, not someone else's.
Most couples can make these decisions themselves when the process is structured for them. That is the path Divii is built for. It walks you both through every decision with plain-language guides beside every question, calculates support and property division with the same math lawyers use, and drafts the agreement as you go. You keep control of the pace and the outcome, your spouse works in the same file, and independent legal advice comes at the end, when there is a finished agreement to review rather than a negotiation to run.
Support scales without changing paths. If you want a professional set of eyes along the way, a guidance session and a review of your file are available. If the two of you are stuck on a few issues, facilitated mediation works through them with a neutral professional in the room. It is the same file throughout, so nothing restarts when the level of support changes. Get in touch and we will point you to the right path.
Some situations call for individual legal representation from the start: where there is family violence, where there is a significant power imbalance between you, where one of you will not disclose finances, or where negotiations keep breaking down despite good-faith effort. In those circumstances, hire your own lawyer first. Divii can still do useful work in the background, organizing information and running the numbers, but the negotiation belongs in professional hands.
Every separation agreement, however it gets made, moves through the same six stages.
Income, assets, debts, and the documents behind them. Negotiating on a partial picture produces an unfair agreement or an endless one.
Enough BC family law to make informed decisions. Not expertise, understanding.
Get clear on what matters to you, so you can tell a solution that serves your life from one that only looks fair on paper.
Parenting, support, and property, worked through at your own pace and in any order.
The decisions become a complete, properly drafted agreement. In Divii, this stage happens by itself as you decide.
Independent legal advice before signing, starting from finished work rather than a blank file.
Divii is built around exactly this sequence: the tools organize the information, the guides teach the law in plain language, the calculators put real numbers under the decisions, and the agreement drafts itself along the way.
Section 4
A separation agreement becomes binding the old-fashioned way: it is written down, complete, and properly signed. What surprises most people is what "properly signed" means, and what it does not.
If you sign without seeing a lawyer, the agreement is binding and strong when each of you signs a waiver of independent legal advice and signs in front of an adult witness. In BC that means someone over 19, and it should be someone who does not benefit from the agreement. Divii includes the waiver in the document.
The agreement is at its strongest when each spouse signs in front of a lawyer who has also signed the Certificate of Independent Legal Advice attached to the agreement.
A notary acts as a witness and nothing more. They cannot give legal advice, so notarizing does not make your agreement stronger. If you are choosing between a notary and any adult witness, the agreement does not care.
Whichever way you sign, the strength of an agreement also lives in its content: complete, detailed, and drafted so each clause holds the context it needs. That is the standard Divii drafts to.
Section 5
With Divii, the answer is exact. One flat fee per agreement, spouse included, plus tax, covering every tool, all education and videos, and the finished agreement. You choose the level of support your situation needs:
The complete self-guided file: every tool, all education and videos, and your finished Separation Agreement.
Everything in Divii, with an Initial Guidance Session at the start and a professional review of your completed file before your Agreement generates.
Everything in Divii Guided, plus private preparation meetings and up to two hours of mediation with a qualified, rostered family mediator for the terms you cannot agree on.
Nothing you decide is ever wasted.
The traditional route prices differently: two lawyers, each billing by the hour, negotiating between them and drafting at the end. Negotiated and drafted that way, a separation agreement typically runs from $5,000 to $20,000 or more, and nobody can quote the number in advance, because it depends on how long agreement takes to reach. That uncertainty, more than any single bill, is what most couples are choosing to leave behind.
Most of that cost is work you can do yourselves. The learning, the calculations, and the negotiation itself can all be done by the two of you in Divii, which reduces those fees substantially and leaves lawyers doing what they do best: focused advice on a finished agreement.
Independent legal advice before signing is a separate, focused cost on any path, and money well spent. By the time a Divii agreement reaches a lawyer for review, the decisions are made and documented, which keeps that review short.
The Divii way
Divii walks you through parenting, support, and property one decision at a time, with plain-language guides beside every question and the same calculations lawyers use. Each decision becomes a clause, and by the time you finish deciding, your BC Separation Agreement is drafted, ready to export to Word or PDF for review and signing.
Rebecca Alleyne built Divii after more than 20 years of family law and mediation practice in British Columbia. Every clause Divii drafts, and every word of this guide, reflects that experience. Divii participates in the Law Society of British Columbia's Innovation Sandbox.
Reviewed and updated August 2026.