Glossary

In Family Law, Income Assistance, Tribunals and Courts, Wills and Powers of Attorney

Assets, sometimes called property, are things that you own. For example, assets include cars, real estate, registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs), and any savings you have.

In Housing Law

Give your rented home permanently to a new tenant, who is called your assignee. The new tenant takes over all your responsibilities such as paying rent. Usually you need the landlord’s permission. Assigning means you have no right to move back in. It is often mistakenly called subletting, but subletting is something different.

In Debt and Consumer Rights

An automatic discharge ends the bankruptcy process. It happens when you’re released from most of your unsecured debts without having to go to court.  

When someone is bankrupt for the first time, the discharge could happen as early as 9 months after you file for bankruptcy.

In Employment and Work

In an averaging agreement, you agree to get overtime on the average number of overtime hours you work over 2 weeks or more, not the actual number of hours.

In most jobs, the hours you work over 44 hours a week are overtime hours. And for those hours you get paid 1 ½ times your regular wage.

To average your overtime hours over a certain number of weeks, take the total number of hours you worked in that period and divide by the number of weeks in that period.

Then subtract 44 hours from the total and multiply by the number of weeks in the period to figure out the overtime hours you’ll have.