How Long to Keep Divorce Papers in Canada

Documents You Keep Permanently

Some divorce documents have no expiry on their usefulness. These are the ones you'll need for identity changes, property transactions, remarriage, pension claims, and estate planning — potentially decades after your divorce:

Certificate of Divorce. This is the court-issued document that proves your marriage was legally dissolved. You'll need it to remarry, update government ID, and prove your marital status to financial institutions. The Certificate of Divorce has no expiration date. Keep the original in a secure location — a fireproof home safe or a safety deposit box.

Divorce Order (Divorce Judgment). The actual court order signed by the judge. While the Certificate of Divorce is the document most agencies accept, the full Divorce Order contains the terms and conditions that govern property division, custody, and support. Keep it permanently.

Separation Agreement. If you negotiated terms outside of court, your signed separation agreement is a binding legal contract that governs property division, support obligations, and parenting arrangements. It may be needed years later to enforce, vary, or interpret the original deal. Keep the original with original signatures.

Property Transfer Documents. Land title transfers (Form A in BC), Property Transfer Tax exemption filings (Code 15), and LTSA registration confirmations. If you ever sell the property or face a tax audit on the transfer, you'll need these.

Pension Division Forms. In BC, Forms P1, P2, and P4 for provincial pension division, plus any CRA Form T2220 used for RRSP/RRIF/TFSA transfers. Pension administrators and the CRA can request proof of the original division decades later — especially when the pension member reaches retirement age and the limited member files Form P4.

Court-stamped affidavits and financial statements. Any sworn documents filed with the court, including financial disclosure affidavits, are part of the permanent court record. Keep your copies in case the court file becomes inaccessible.

Documents With a Limited Retention Period

Tax-related records. The CRA generally recommends keeping tax records for six years from the end of the tax year they relate to. For divorce-related tax records — spousal support payment logs, T4RSP/T4RIF slips from account transfers, child care receipts, legal fee records used for deductions — the six-year rule applies from the year you filed the return claiming the deduction or reporting the income.

However, if a divorce-related tax issue could be reassessed beyond six years (rare, but possible in cases involving fraud or misrepresentation), the CRA has no time limit. When in doubt, keep tax records related to major asset transfers permanently.

Financial institution correspondence. Letters confirming account closures, credit line freezes, beneficiary changes, and mortgage discharges. Keep these for at least six years — long enough to cover any dispute over whether the action was actually completed. After that, you'll have bank records and credit bureau histories as backup evidence.

Parenting and custody communication logs. If you used a co-parenting app or kept records of custody exchanges, these are relevant as long as custody remains an active issue — typically until the youngest child reaches the age of majority (19 in BC). After that, they have limited practical use.

What You Can Safely Discard

Drafts and working copies. Earlier versions of your separation agreement, draft financial proposals, and lawyer correspondence about negotiation strategy can be discarded once the final agreement is signed and any appeal periods have passed.

Duplicate copies of filed court documents. Keep one clean copy of every filed document. You don't need three copies of the same affidavit.

Expired insurance policies. If a life insurance policy was part of your divorce settlement and has since been replaced or is no longer required by the agreement, the old policy documents can go once you've confirmed the new policy is in force.

How to Store Them

Physical originals with court stamps or original signatures — the Certificate of Divorce, Divorce Order, and separation agreement — should be stored in a fireproof safe or bank safety deposit box. Digital scans are useful backups but aren't always accepted as substitutes for originals.

For everything else, high-resolution scans stored in encrypted cloud storage work well. Label files clearly with dates and document types. If you ever need to produce documents for a court application, pension claim, or tax audit, being able to find them quickly matters more than the format.

The BC After-Divorce Checklist includes a document retention guide alongside every post-divorce administrative task — from the identity updates and pension claims that require these documents to the CRA notifications that generate new records worth keeping.

See more British Columbia guides →