Separation Agreements in Alberta
A separation agreement in Alberta is the written agreement a couple makes when they separate, settling property, support and the arrangements for any children, so the terms are recorded rather than left to be argued later.
What the Agreement Has to Deal With
A separation agreement can address children, property and support. The relevant subjects depend on the couple's circumstances; this is not a court filing checklist.
Arrangements for the children, including child support. Where there are dependent children, the court has to be satisfied about the child support arrangements before it grants a divorce.
Division of family property. What each of you keeps, what is shared and how the rest is divided.
family property division in Alberta›
Support between the two of you, where either of you is claiming it.
How the divorce itself is applied for is a separate subject with its own requirements.
For Adult Interdependent Partners, Signing Can Start a Clock
A written agreement that provides evidence that the two of you intend to live separate and apart, without the possibility of reconciliation, is one of the events that makes you former adult interdependent partners.
A limit runs on a family property application. The Family Property Act sets a two-year limit on the applications the provision covers, running from when the applicant first knew, or should have known, that they had become a former adult interdependent partner.
Which applications the provision covers is a question to put to a lawyer, and so is which limit applies to the claim you want to bring.
Where the claim concerns property that has been transferred or given away, a shorter limit can apply, which is another reason to ask early rather than to assume you have the longer period.
For the status change described here, the written agreement can count even if it does not satisfy the Act's property-agreement requirements. The tests are separate. Several events can create former-partner status, and the earliest governs; signing is not necessarily the trigger in your situation.
Which event applies to you, and what it means for your timing, is a question to put to a lawyer before you sign.
The Formal Requirements
An agreement that is to deal with the status, ownership and division of property has formal requirements under the Family Property Act (Alberta).
It has to be in writing.
Each person makes a written acknowledgement, apart from the other. Each of you acknowledges that you are aware of the nature and the effect of the agreement, that you are aware of the possible future claims to property you may have under the Act and intend to give them up to the extent the agreement requires, and that you are entering into it freely and voluntarily without compulsion by the other.
Each acknowledgement is made before a lawyer who is not the other person's. That is the requirement people know as independent legal advice.
independent legal advice for family agreements›
Those requirements are what the Act sets out. How an agreement was made is a separate question from them, and it is one to put to your own lawyer. What each of you knew about the other's finances when the agreement was made belongs to that separate question.
Writing It Down Yourselves
Couples sometimes write their terms out between themselves and keep the document. Whether a home-made document does what the two of you intend, and whether it meets the requirements above, are questions worth asking before you rely on it.
kitchen-table separation agreements›
An agreement you both hold can also be one of the family agreements that fit other stages of a relationship.
If you already hold an agreement about the status, ownership, valuation or division of property that you entered into before January 1, 2020, it remains enforceable after that date to the same extent, if any, that it was enforceable immediately before.
How a Lawyer Helps
A family lawyer in Calgary advises you on what the Act would otherwise do, drafts the agreement or reviews one drafted by the other person's lawyer, and takes the acknowledgement the Act requires.
Why THEBIL Law
Nne Christiana Udo is the family lawyer at THEBIL Law and a member of the Law Society of Alberta. She advises clients on Alberta family law and prepares and reviews family agreements.
THEBIL Law had 87 Google reviews when the count was confirmed on September 21, 2026.
Talk to a Calgary Family Lawyer About a Separation Agreement
Contact THEBIL Law to discuss a separation agreement and the questions you want to address.
Send a consultation request at any time, or call 403-457-3128 during office hours. After you send the form, the office contacts you to arrange a meeting.