Every July, millions of viewers tune in to watch Shark Week and learn about one of nature’s most formidable predators. Despite their fearsome reputation, sharks possess one redeeming quality: they often reveal themselves before they become a threat. The predators to be discussed below offer no such warning.[1]
Introduction
Estate litigators have been increasingly required to confront a different sort of predator. Rather than fins, teeth, or brute force, these predators disarm their victims with companionship, trust, and affection. The harm they cause occurs over the course of months or years, as opposed to moments. Their targets are some of society’s most vulnerable individuals; the elderly, the isolated, the recently widowed, and those experiencing cognitive decline.
By wielding the institution of marriage as a tool for financial exploitation, these predators can fundamentally alter a victim’s legal rights long before family members recognize what has occurred. The predators this article is concerned with are those who engage in what has become known as predatory marriage.
To be clear at the outset: not every late-in-life marriage is suspicious. Many are genuine, loving relationships, and courts are rightly cautious about second-guessing the emotional lives of older adults simply because their children disapprove. The above comparison is not meant to diminish the genuine tragedy and difficulty that predatory marriages cause; the aim here is simply to explain, in accessible terms, a pattern that estate litigators increasingly encounter.
What Is a Predatory Marriage?
The term “predatory marriage” does not refer to a cause of action, or a legal test, and there is no current statutory definition in Ontario; rather, the term is meant to broadly describe a type of issue and/or similar fact pattern, the frequency of which is increasingly before the courts.
Accordingly, although there is no universally accepted definition, the term generally describes the exploitation of an elderly or otherwise vulnerable individual, by a recent acquaintance or caregiver who has ingratiated themselves into a position of trust and companionship, not for the purpose of forming a genuine marital relationship, but to secure a financial benefit (typically through marriage).
Although every case turns on its own facts, predatory marriages commonly share several hallmarks. The predator is often substantially younger than the vulnerable individual, and the relationship is frequently characterized by a significant age disparity, the absence of children born of the relationship, and the progressive isolation of the vulnerable spouse from family and friends. The relationship itself may develop with unusual speed, culminating in marriage shortly after the parties meet, often accompanied by increasing pressure to marry at a time when the vulnerable individual’s cognitive or physical health is in decline.
Marriage As a Vehicle for Exploitation
To understand why predatory marriage is such an effective form of exploitation, one must appreciate the legal consequences that arise from a formal marriage. The effects to be enumerated below often arise automatically and immediately, without either spouse taking any further legal steps.
Under Part V of the Succession Law Reform Act,[2] a surviving spouse is entitled to commence a dependant’s support claim, regardless of whether the deceased died testate or intestate. Further, should the vulnerable party die intestate, the surviving spouse is entitled to a preferential share of the estate, together with a portion of any remaining estate.[3]
Pursuant to the Family Law Act,[4] spouses are afforded specific rights with respect to the matrimonial home, including possessory rights that exist independently of legal or beneficial ownership, and that cannot be defeated by a Will, or by the home being held in the other spouse’s name alone. Upon divorce/separation, a spouse may be entitled to equalization of net family property and/or spousal support.
Marriage also elevates a person’s standing within the law’s substitute decision-making hierarchies. Pursuant to section 20 of the Health Care Consent Act,[5] a spouse ranks near the top of the list of persons authorized to consent to treatment on behalf of an incapable person.[6] Similarly, under the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992,[7] a spouse is typically given priority standing to apply for statutory guardianship over an incapable person’s property.
Lastly, marriage occupies a unique legal position insofar as it can immediately alter an individual’s legal rights and entitlements without requiring independent legal advice, without generating any meaningful documentary record beyond the marriage license itself, and often without anyone present other than the two spouses. By contrast, the creation or amendment of a testamentary plan is typically a deliberate and well-documented process involving legal counsel who ordinarily turn their minds to the testator’s capacity and intentions.
Challenging the Validity of a Marriage:
Capacity to Marry:
In Ontario, Courts must begin with the presumption that every adult is capable.[8] That presumption is not easily displaced, as a finding of incapacity is usually required to rebut it, and the presumption applies to all personal decisions. Accordingly, the presumption will stand unless there is clear, corroborating evidence to the contrary.[9]
Two statutory frameworks governing marriage itself reflect this baseline requirement: First, Ontario’s Marriage Act prohibits the issuance of a license to solemnize a marriage where the issuer knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe, that a party lacks the mental capacity to marry.[10] Second, the federal Civil Marriage Act requires the free and enlightened consent of both parties.[11]
To succeed in having a marriage declared void or a nullity on the basis of incapacity, a party must demonstrate that the individual in question was incapable of understanding the nature of the relationship, and the obligations or responsibilities it involved.[12] The onus rests with the party asserting incapacity, and the evidence must be of a sufficiently clear and definite character, a mere preponderance will not suffice.[13]
As with other capacity inquiries, the determination is decision, time, and situation specific. The relevant time in evaluating an individual’s capacity to make a particular decision is the time at which the decision is made, and one is presumed capable unless and until the presumption is legally rebutted.[14]
In assessing the capacity to marry, Courts will consider several contextual factors:
(1) the couple’s relationship prior to the marriage;
(2) the person’s cognitive capacity leading up to and immediately after the marriage,
(3) the person’s understanding of the marriage ceremony, vows, obligations it created; and
(4) the person’s interactions with professionals contemporaneous to the marriage.[15]
Duress & Coercion:
Capacity is not the only avenue to challenge the validity of a marriage. A marriage may also be set aside where one of the parties was exercising sufficient duress or coercion which vitiated consent.[16]
To establish duress, it must be shown that the spouse’s mind was so overborne by oppression that there was an absence of free choice; the ultimate question being, whether the consent given at the ceremony was real, informed, and voluntary.[17]
The Difficulties in Challenging Predatory Marriages & The Need for Further Reform
Setting aside a predatory marriage is challenging litigation because the law begins from a position that favours the validity of the marriage. By the time the issue reaches the courts, the vulnerable spouse is often incapacitated, leaving parties to reconstruct capacity retrospectively from medical records and witness testimony. Capacity, duress, and coercion each require distinct evidentiary foundations, and courts remain appropriately cautious before setting aside a legally valid marriage.
Ontario has begun to respond, but only incrementally. Effective January 1, 2022, the province abolished the long-standing rule that marriage automatically revoked a prior Will, eliminating one significant avenue for financial exploitation.
For practitioners and families, vigilance therefore remains essential. While no single circumstance is determinative, a rapidly developing relationship, increasing isolation, sudden marriage, unexplained estate planning changes, cognitive decline, or controlling behaviour should prompt timely legal advice before critical evidence is lost.
Conclusion
Unlike the sharks featured each July, financial predators seldom announce their presence. They often begin by cultivating trust, intimacy, and dependence, before exploiting the legal rights that marriage confers. By the time the warning signs become obvious, the consequences often extend well beyond broken family relationships, as they reshape inheritances, alter legal entitlements, and generate some of the most complex and evidentially fraught disputes encountered in estate litigation.
The value of Shark Week lies not in sensationalizing predators, but in understanding how they behave. The same is true of predatory marriage. Only by recognizing its hallmarks can the law meaningfully distinguish genuine relationships from financial exploitation disguised as marriage. That distinction is neither easy nor intuitive, particularly where exploitation unfolds gradually behind a façade of affection, trust, and companionship. Yet it is precisely that challenge that courts, practitioners, and policymakers must confront if the law is to provide meaningful protection to society’s most vulnerable individuals.
—
[1] The comparison that contained herein is offered only as a way into a serious subject; it is not intended to make light of the very real tragedy and hardship that predatory marriages inflict on their victims and families.
[2] Succession Law Reform Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.26 (“SLRA”); to read more about intestacy and preferential shares, check out – Dying Without a Will: How Ontario’s Intestacy Rules and Preferential Shares Shape Estate Distribution | WEL Partners Blog.
[3] See Part II of the SLRA, at sections 45-46.
[4] Family Law Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3 (“FLA”).
[5] Health Care Consent Act, 1996, S.O. 1996, c. 2, Sched. A (“HCCA”).
[6] Second only to a court-appointed guardian of the person or a named attorney for personal care.
[7] Substitute Decisions Act, 1992, S.O. 1992, c. 30, (“SDA”).
[8] Pursuant to section 2 of the SDA; and section 4(2) of the HCCA.
[9] Pursuant to section 2(1) of the SDA; Starson v. Swayze, 2003 SCC 32 (CanLII), [2003] 1 SCR 722, at para 77; and Lewis v. Lewis, 2019 ONCA 690 (CanLII), at para 3.
[10] Marriage Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.3, at section 7.
[11] Civil Marriage Act, S.C. 2005, c. 33, at section 2.1.
[12] Banton v. Banton, 1998 CanLII 14926 (ON SC), at para 142 (“Banton”); Tanti v. Tanti, 2021 ONCA 717 (CanLII), at para 11 (“Tanti”).
[13] Tanti, at para 10.
[14] Hunt v. Worrod, 2017 ONSC 7397 (CanLII), at para 13.
[15] Tanti, at para 58.
[16] Banton, at para 135; see also Feng v. Sung Estate, 2003 CanLII 2420 (ON SC), at para 65.
[17] Saeed v Nabi, 1999 CarswellOnt 1087, at para 10.
Written by: Grant Swedak
Posted on: July 29, 2026
Categories: Commentary, WEL Newsletter
Every July, millions of viewers tune in to watch Shark Week and learn about one of nature’s most formidable predators. Despite their fearsome reputation, sharks possess one redeeming quality: they often reveal themselves before they become a threat. The predators to be discussed below offer no such warning.[1]
Introduction
Estate litigators have been increasingly required to confront a different sort of predator. Rather than fins, teeth, or brute force, these predators disarm their victims with companionship, trust, and affection. The harm they cause occurs over the course of months or years, as opposed to moments. Their targets are some of society’s most vulnerable individuals; the elderly, the isolated, the recently widowed, and those experiencing cognitive decline.
By wielding the institution of marriage as a tool for financial exploitation, these predators can fundamentally alter a victim’s legal rights long before family members recognize what has occurred. The predators this article is concerned with are those who engage in what has become known as predatory marriage.
To be clear at the outset: not every late-in-life marriage is suspicious. Many are genuine, loving relationships, and courts are rightly cautious about second-guessing the emotional lives of older adults simply because their children disapprove. The above comparison is not meant to diminish the genuine tragedy and difficulty that predatory marriages cause; the aim here is simply to explain, in accessible terms, a pattern that estate litigators increasingly encounter.
What Is a Predatory Marriage?
The term “predatory marriage” does not refer to a cause of action, or a legal test, and there is no current statutory definition in Ontario; rather, the term is meant to broadly describe a type of issue and/or similar fact pattern, the frequency of which is increasingly before the courts.
Accordingly, although there is no universally accepted definition, the term generally describes the exploitation of an elderly or otherwise vulnerable individual, by a recent acquaintance or caregiver who has ingratiated themselves into a position of trust and companionship, not for the purpose of forming a genuine marital relationship, but to secure a financial benefit (typically through marriage).
Although every case turns on its own facts, predatory marriages commonly share several hallmarks. The predator is often substantially younger than the vulnerable individual, and the relationship is frequently characterized by a significant age disparity, the absence of children born of the relationship, and the progressive isolation of the vulnerable spouse from family and friends. The relationship itself may develop with unusual speed, culminating in marriage shortly after the parties meet, often accompanied by increasing pressure to marry at a time when the vulnerable individual’s cognitive or physical health is in decline.
Marriage As a Vehicle for Exploitation
To understand why predatory marriage is such an effective form of exploitation, one must appreciate the legal consequences that arise from a formal marriage. The effects to be enumerated below often arise automatically and immediately, without either spouse taking any further legal steps.
Under Part V of the Succession Law Reform Act,[2] a surviving spouse is entitled to commence a dependant’s support claim, regardless of whether the deceased died testate or intestate. Further, should the vulnerable party die intestate, the surviving spouse is entitled to a preferential share of the estate, together with a portion of any remaining estate.[3]
Pursuant to the Family Law Act,[4] spouses are afforded specific rights with respect to the matrimonial home, including possessory rights that exist independently of legal or beneficial ownership, and that cannot be defeated by a Will, or by the home being held in the other spouse’s name alone. Upon divorce/separation, a spouse may be entitled to equalization of net family property and/or spousal support.
Marriage also elevates a person’s standing within the law’s substitute decision-making hierarchies. Pursuant to section 20 of the Health Care Consent Act,[5] a spouse ranks near the top of the list of persons authorized to consent to treatment on behalf of an incapable person.[6] Similarly, under the Substitute Decisions Act, 1992,[7] a spouse is typically given priority standing to apply for statutory guardianship over an incapable person’s property.
Lastly, marriage occupies a unique legal position insofar as it can immediately alter an individual’s legal rights and entitlements without requiring independent legal advice, without generating any meaningful documentary record beyond the marriage license itself, and often without anyone present other than the two spouses. By contrast, the creation or amendment of a testamentary plan is typically a deliberate and well-documented process involving legal counsel who ordinarily turn their minds to the testator’s capacity and intentions.
Challenging the Validity of a Marriage:
Capacity to Marry:
In Ontario, Courts must begin with the presumption that every adult is capable.[8] That presumption is not easily displaced, as a finding of incapacity is usually required to rebut it, and the presumption applies to all personal decisions. Accordingly, the presumption will stand unless there is clear, corroborating evidence to the contrary.[9]
Two statutory frameworks governing marriage itself reflect this baseline requirement: First, Ontario’s Marriage Act prohibits the issuance of a license to solemnize a marriage where the issuer knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe, that a party lacks the mental capacity to marry.[10] Second, the federal Civil Marriage Act requires the free and enlightened consent of both parties.[11]
To succeed in having a marriage declared void or a nullity on the basis of incapacity, a party must demonstrate that the individual in question was incapable of understanding the nature of the relationship, and the obligations or responsibilities it involved.[12] The onus rests with the party asserting incapacity, and the evidence must be of a sufficiently clear and definite character, a mere preponderance will not suffice.[13]
As with other capacity inquiries, the determination is decision, time, and situation specific. The relevant time in evaluating an individual’s capacity to make a particular decision is the time at which the decision is made, and one is presumed capable unless and until the presumption is legally rebutted.[14]
In assessing the capacity to marry, Courts will consider several contextual factors:
(1) the couple’s relationship prior to the marriage;
(2) the person’s cognitive capacity leading up to and immediately after the marriage,
(3) the person’s understanding of the marriage ceremony, vows, obligations it created; and
(4) the person’s interactions with professionals contemporaneous to the marriage.[15]
Duress & Coercion:
Capacity is not the only avenue to challenge the validity of a marriage. A marriage may also be set aside where one of the parties was exercising sufficient duress or coercion which vitiated consent.[16]
To establish duress, it must be shown that the spouse’s mind was so overborne by oppression that there was an absence of free choice; the ultimate question being, whether the consent given at the ceremony was real, informed, and voluntary.[17]
The Difficulties in Challenging Predatory Marriages & The Need for Further Reform
Setting aside a predatory marriage is challenging litigation because the law begins from a position that favours the validity of the marriage. By the time the issue reaches the courts, the vulnerable spouse is often incapacitated, leaving parties to reconstruct capacity retrospectively from medical records and witness testimony. Capacity, duress, and coercion each require distinct evidentiary foundations, and courts remain appropriately cautious before setting aside a legally valid marriage.
Ontario has begun to respond, but only incrementally. Effective January 1, 2022, the province abolished the long-standing rule that marriage automatically revoked a prior Will, eliminating one significant avenue for financial exploitation.
For practitioners and families, vigilance therefore remains essential. While no single circumstance is determinative, a rapidly developing relationship, increasing isolation, sudden marriage, unexplained estate planning changes, cognitive decline, or controlling behaviour should prompt timely legal advice before critical evidence is lost.
Conclusion
Unlike the sharks featured each July, financial predators seldom announce their presence. They often begin by cultivating trust, intimacy, and dependence, before exploiting the legal rights that marriage confers. By the time the warning signs become obvious, the consequences often extend well beyond broken family relationships, as they reshape inheritances, alter legal entitlements, and generate some of the most complex and evidentially fraught disputes encountered in estate litigation.
The value of Shark Week lies not in sensationalizing predators, but in understanding how they behave. The same is true of predatory marriage. Only by recognizing its hallmarks can the law meaningfully distinguish genuine relationships from financial exploitation disguised as marriage. That distinction is neither easy nor intuitive, particularly where exploitation unfolds gradually behind a façade of affection, trust, and companionship. Yet it is precisely that challenge that courts, practitioners, and policymakers must confront if the law is to provide meaningful protection to society’s most vulnerable individuals.
—
[1] The comparison that contained herein is offered only as a way into a serious subject; it is not intended to make light of the very real tragedy and hardship that predatory marriages inflict on their victims and families.
[2] Succession Law Reform Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.26 (“SLRA”); to read more about intestacy and preferential shares, check out – Dying Without a Will: How Ontario’s Intestacy Rules and Preferential Shares Shape Estate Distribution | WEL Partners Blog.
[3] See Part II of the SLRA, at sections 45-46.
[4] Family Law Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3 (“FLA”).
[5] Health Care Consent Act, 1996, S.O. 1996, c. 2, Sched. A (“HCCA”).
[6] Second only to a court-appointed guardian of the person or a named attorney for personal care.
[7] Substitute Decisions Act, 1992, S.O. 1992, c. 30, (“SDA”).
[8] Pursuant to section 2 of the SDA; and section 4(2) of the HCCA.
[9] Pursuant to section 2(1) of the SDA; Starson v. Swayze, 2003 SCC 32 (CanLII), [2003] 1 SCR 722, at para 77; and Lewis v. Lewis, 2019 ONCA 690 (CanLII), at para 3.
[10] Marriage Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. M.3, at section 7.
[11] Civil Marriage Act, S.C. 2005, c. 33, at section 2.1.
[12] Banton v. Banton, 1998 CanLII 14926 (ON SC), at para 142 (“Banton”); Tanti v. Tanti, 2021 ONCA 717 (CanLII), at para 11 (“Tanti”).
[13] Tanti, at para 10.
[14] Hunt v. Worrod, 2017 ONSC 7397 (CanLII), at para 13.
[15] Tanti, at para 58.
[16] Banton, at para 135; see also Feng v. Sung Estate, 2003 CanLII 2420 (ON SC), at para 65.
[17] Saeed v Nabi, 1999 CarswellOnt 1087, at para 10.
Author