each provincial jurisdiction has its own rule for determination of common law.
In Ontario in a relationship of some permanence and co-habituating for 3 years, and less than 3 years if a child was born of the relationship. This basically is for spousal support purposes.
Some federal laws such as itax and cpp credits division recognize 1 year co-habitation as the time frame to be considered common law designation.
Additionally employer sponsored benefit plan recognize the 1 year co-habitation as the time frame as common law designation.
If the house was in your name alone and you co-habitated for 4 months, I highly suspect she would not be entitled to 50% of the value of the home.
I would check with the appropriate Nova Scotia act that would deal with this situation to confirm.
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