By Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce · Updated
Most of these are not signs of dishonesty. They are signs of a document that will not work in three years, which causes the same amount of damage more slowly.
| The biggest by far | Incomplete disclosure. Everything else is secondary. |
|---|---|
| Vagueness | "To be agreed", "in due course", "at a fair price" — every one is a future dispute. |
| Conditional obligations | Anything depending on future behaviour is a mechanism for renegotiation. |
| Silence | An issue that was live and is now unmentioned is unresolved, not agreed. |
| Time pressure | An expiry on a settlement offer is a device far more often than a constraint. |
| No enforcement provision | What happens if someone does not comply should be in the document. |
| Releases | Check the scope. It is usually broader than the negotiation was. |
| No independent legal advice | In Canada especially, this is what makes a good agreement unenforceable. |
Keeping track of dates like these across a stack of letters is exactly what SortMyDivorce does — start a free trial, no card needed.
Do not settle while disclosure is incomplete.
Everything below is secondary to this. If you do not know what exists — accounts, pensions, business interests, debts — you are not evaluating a settlement, you are guessing at one.
This is also the red flag most likely to be waved away, usually with a reasonable-sounding argument about proportionality and cost. Sometimes that argument is right. It is still a decision to make deliberately, with advice, rather than by default because everyone is tired.
The most common defect in a settlement document, and it produces litigation years later between people who thought they were finished.
"The family home to be sold and the proceeds divided fairly."
"The family home to be listed for sale within 60 days of this agreement, at a price determined by the average of two valuations from agents agreed between the parties (or, failing agreement, appointed by [X]); net proceeds after costs and discharge of the mortgage to be divided 55/45; if either party fails to sign a listing agreement within 14 days of the price being determined, the other may list the property alone."
Both say the house gets sold. Only one of them will still be working when one party changes their mind.
Watch for: "to be agreed", "as soon as reasonably practicable", "at a fair price", "in due course", "as the parties may determine", "reasonable access". Each is a placeholder for a decision nobody made.
Anything conditional on someone continuing to do something is a mechanism for renegotiation.
"Support to continue while the recipient is not cohabiting." "The payment to be made once the business has recovered." "The schedule to apply provided the children are settled."
Some conditionality is unavoidable, and some is genuinely appropriate. But each condition is a point at which someone can say the condition has failed, and that is a dispute you have written into your own agreement. Ask, for each one: who decides whether the condition is met, on what evidence, and what happens if they disagree?
An issue that was being negotiated and is unmentioned in the draft has not resolved itself.
This is the failure the offer log exists to catch. Compare the draft against your record of what has been in dispute, issue by issue. If the pension was live in round three and appears nowhere in the final document, that is a question, not an oversight to discover later.
Related: check whether the agreement says anything about issues it does not cover. An agreement silent on a point may or may not preclude a later claim about it, depending on the release wording and your jurisdiction — which is exactly why the release wording deserves reading.
An offer with a short expiry, a demand to sign before you have taken advice, or an insistence that "this is only available today."
Occasionally there is a real constraint — a court date, a sale, a genuine third-party deadline. Far more often it is a device, and its purpose is to prevent you getting advice.
The test is simple: ask for a few days to take legal advice. A refusal tells you what you need to know. Nobody with a fair offer objects to it being reviewed.
Well-drafted agreements say what happens if someone does not do what they agreed. Interest on late payments. A mechanism if a party will not sign a transfer. What happens if a sale does not complete.
An agreement with no enforcement provisions is not necessarily unenforceable, but you will be relying on the general law and a court application rather than on something the document itself provides. That is slower and more expensive.
Most settlements involve giving up the right to bring further claims. Read the release clause specifically and understand: what is being released, by whom, for what period, and whether anything is carved out.
Releases are routinely broader than the negotiation was. This is not usually sharp practice — it is standard drafting — but it is your job to know what you are signing away, and it is one of the parts nobody discusses in correspondence.
Covered fully in our guides to signing a separation agreement, but it belongs on any red flag list.
In Canada, the absence of independent legal advice is a recognised route by which agreements are challenged, and for property agreements in Alberta CPLEA warns that without certificates of independent legal advice "the courts may not be able to do anything if the other person is not following your agreement."
The counterintuitive part: this is a red flag whether it is you or your spouse who lacks advice. An agreement your unrepresented spouse signs without advice is a more fragile agreement, and fragility is not in your interest.
Numbers that do not add up. Check the arithmetic. Transposed figures happen.
Dates that have already passed in a draft that has been sitting for weeks.
Names, addresses and account numbers — errors here cause real problems at implementation.
Tax treatment not addressed. Support, property transfers and pension divisions can have very different tax consequences on each side. Two agreements with the same headline value can differ materially after tax.
No date for review or variation where circumstances are obviously going to change.
A draft that does not match what you accepted. Compare clause by clause against the offer. Drift between agreement and drafting is common.
Verification note. This guide is structural. It deliberately states no jurisdiction-specific ground on which an agreement may be set aside, because those differ substantially and are fact-specific. The independent legal advice material is verified for Alberta and British Columbia only. Confirm your own position with a local lawyer.
Then it probably is on the legal points. This list is largely about practical durability — mechanisms, conditions, enforcement — and you are better placed than your lawyer to know whether a clause will work in your actual life. Raise anything on this list specifically.
Not by itself, and cynicism has its own costs. But reasonableness is not a substitute for disclosure, and a generous-sounding offer made before you know what exists is still a guess.
Not necessarily — but asking for enough time to take advice is always reasonable. If that request is refused, treat the refusal as the information.
Get advice, promptly. Some things can be corrected by agreement or by a subsequent document; some cannot. The options narrow with time.
Not necessarily — but it means enforcement may require a court to interpret it, which is expensive and uncertain. The point of specificity is to avoid needing anyone to decide what you meant.
Last reviewed August 2026. Researched and written by Neta, founder of SortMyDivorce. I am not a lawyer and this is not legal advice — laws, fees and forms change, so please confirm current details with your court’s official website or a local family lawyer.
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