CITATION: Sandhu v. Dhillon, 2026 ONSC 4609
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
B E T W E E N:
AKSHPREET KAUR SANDHU
Supriya Joshi, for the Applicant
Applicant
- and -
MANINDERPAL SINGH DHILLON
Self-represented
(previously represented by Ritika Narang)
Respondent
Heard in Writing
Submissions Received:
Apr. 15, May 8 and16, 2025
COSTS ENDORSEMENT FOR TRIAL
Stewart J.
1. The court released trial reasons on February 2, 2026, and supplementary trial reasons on June 8, 2026. The supplementary trial reasons instructed the parties to serve, file, and upload costs submissions on the following schedule:
a. Applicant: June 30, 2026, at 4pm;
b. Respondent: July 21, 2026, at 4pm.
2. Both parties were represented throughout the case, including the six-day trial and the supplementary submissions.
No Costs Submissions from the Applicant
3. As of the date of these reasons, the applicant has not filed her costs submissions. The court is confident that the applicant and her counsel were aware of the supplementary trial reasons which set the costs deadlines because the applicant served a notice of appeal on July 6, 2026[1].
4. Out of an abundance of caution, the court emailed the parties on August 7, 2026, at 1229pm and asked the applicant to provide a copy of her costs submissions if they had been submitted by the June 30 deadline. The court did not receive a response from either party.
Positions of the Parties
5. As noted above, the applicant, Ms. Sandhu, did not file costs submissions.
6. The respondent, Mr. Dhillon, seeks his full recovery costs in the amount of $62,799.75. He also asks the court to order that the costs are in the nature of support and enforceable by FRO.
Materials Reviewed
7. In making this costs decision, the court relied on the trial reasons and the supplementary trial reasons. The court partially relied on the respondent’s costs submissions.
8. The respondent’s costs submission contains irrelevant information (such as the status of the litigation between the parties and their families in India which this court has no jurisdiction over) as well as information protected by settlement privilege (such as the specific comments made by the pre-trial judge at in-trial pretrial conducted on the first day of trial). The court disregarded the irrelevant and/or privileged information.
Offers
9. Mr. Dhillon made four offers to settle this litigation:
a. August 24, 2021: applicant transfers half of her TFSA to Mr. Dhillon, return gifted jewelry to him and dismiss all other claims. The offer is silent about the value of the TFSA, but the court infers that part of the offer was worth $4,455.16, as that is 50% of what the respondent says the applicant’s TFSA was worth on the date of separation[2].
b. June 14, 2022: the parties will keep their assets as at date of separation; all other claims in India and Canada dismissed; no costs;
c. November 7, 2023: same as June 14, 2022, offer;
d. December 2, 2024: same as June 14, 2022, offer.
10. Mr. Dhillon says, without documentary evidence, that he made a fifth offer at the in-trial pretrial: he would pay Ms. Sandhu $10,000 in exchange for dismissal of all claims in Canada and did not include any term that the Indian proceedings be withdrawn.
11. The court cannot consider the fifth offer as there is no documentary evidence of that offer.
12. The court finds that Mr. Dhillon’s trial result was better than any of his offers.
13. The last three offers (June 14, 2022, November 7, 2023, and December 2, 2024) are identical. The court finds that the provision regarding the Indian litigation cannot be operative because the Ontario court has no jurisdiction over it. The clause dealing with the Indian litigation is therefore more a statement of intent than binding offer in the Ontario proceeding.
Who was the successful party at trial?
14. The court finds that Mr. Dhillon was the successful party at trial.
15. Looking at the overall result, Mr. Dhillon was awarded an equalization payment of $10,822.21. Ms. Sandhu received no payment. On this analysis, Mr. Dhillon was the successful party at trial.
16. Looking at the individual issues raised at trial, there were ten issues and Mr. Dhillon was successful on seven. In the issues list (below), the court included divorce and spousal support, as these issues were not settled when the trial opened. Ms. Sandhu conceded those issues at the opening of trial. This means that Mr. Dhillon had spent time and effort preparing for trial on these topics.
Issue
Outcome
Successful Party
Divorce
Ms. S abandoned her opposition at the outset of trial
Dhillon
Spousal support
Ms. S abandoned her claim for more spousal support at the outset of trial[3]
Dhillon
Jewelry
Court rejected Mr. D’s request to include jewelry in S’s NFP
Sandhu
Inclusion of S’s TFSA on her NFP
Court ordered that S’s TSFA be included in the NFP
Dhillon
Undisclosed accounts
Court rejected Mr. D’s claim that Ms. S had $4800 in undisclosed accounts on date of separation
Sandhu
Household goods for S
Court found that Ms. S failed to prove she had $4000 of household goods prior to marriage
Dhillon
Real estate
The court declined to attribute $132,000 to Mr. D on his NFP; this was already accounted for in the NPF
Dhillon
D’s withdrawals from TFSA
Ms. Sandhu raised this in closing argument. The claim was rejected.
Dhillon
Unequal divisions of NFP
The court declined to grant Mr. D’s request for an unequal division of property.
Sandhu
MH designation
Ms. S admitted that 22 Cogswell was not the matrimonial home but challenged that after receiving the trial reasons. Supplementary reasons ruled that the property was not the MH
Dhillon
17. Finally, comparing the trial result to the offers made by Mr. Dhillon, he was the successful party (see section above on offers).
18. Whether assessed from the vantage point of overall financial outcome, an issue-by-issue analysis, or comparison to offers (see offers section), the court finds that Mr. Dhillon was the successful party at trial.
Mr. Dhillon’s Bill of Costs
19. Mr. Dhillon’s bill of costs is comprehensive and divides the hours spent on the cases into different phases.
20. Mr. Dhillon started this case with Mr. Dhindsa and moved to Ms. Narang after the first case conference. Mr. Dhindsa and Ms. Narang have hourly rates ($300 and $400 per hour respectively) which are within the market standards seen by this court.
21. The hours spent by counsel for the conferences and out of court examinations are reasonable. By necessity, there had to have been some overlap with the change of counsel. There is a minor error on the first settlement conference in that counsel records having spent 10.75 hours on that phase but calculates a fee for 11.25 hours.
22. Counsel billed 85 hours for trial preparation, trial and post trial argument/submissions. It would be easy to assess that time as being unreasonable in retrospect, knowing the result, but the practical reality is that there were numerous substantive issues at the start of trial and all had to be prepared for. These 85 hours also include the supplementary written submissions, which were comprehensive.
23. The supplementary trial issue deserves further discussion. Ms. Sandhu admitted, at trial, that the 22 Cogswell property was not the matrimonial home.
24. In the 91 paragraph trial reasons, the court referred to 22 Cogswell as the matrimonial home, in a passing fashion, on two lines. Ms. Sandhu asked the court to reconsider this issue. The parties prepared supplementary submissions and the court issued supplementary trial reasons finding:
a. Ms. Sandhu’s admission at trial was binding;
b. The lack of clear language in two lines of the trial reasons did not change the fundamental meaning and findings of the trial reasons, that 22 Cogswell was not the matrimonial home; and
c. Considering the issue independently, without Ms. Sandhu’s admission, the court would easily find, on the trial evidence, that 22 Cogswell was not the matrimonial home.
25. Taking into account the issues argued at trial and the supplementary issue pursued by Ms. Sandhu, the court finds that 85 hours is a reasonable amount of time.
Costs Law and Analysis
26. Costs orders are discretionary[4].
27. Modern family law costs rules are designed to foster four fundamental purposes:
a. Partially indemnity successful litigant;
b. Encourage settlement;
c. Discourage and sanction inappropriate behaviour by litigants; and
d. Ensure that cases are dealt with justly[5].
28. The overall objective is to fix an amount that is fair and reasonable for the unsuccessful party to pay in the particular circumstance of the case, rather than an amount fixed by the actual costs incurred by the successful litigant[6].
29. Reasonableness and proportionality are the overarching considerations.
30. Recognizing that the starting point is partial indemnity, there are certain circumstances which will give rise to an enhanced scale of costs. The circumstances which are relevant to this case are:
a. Operation of offers; and
b. Unreasonable behaviour.
Offers
31. In this case, Mr. Dhillon beat all his offers. However, that does not automatically entitle him to enhanced costs. To get the benefit of that rule, the offer must be in place at the time the trial starts (Family Law Rule 24(12)). The offer that was in place at the start of trial was the offer dated December 2, 2024, so the enhanced costs would start at that time, not earlier.
32. In the offers section, I referred to the in-trial pre-trial. To be clear, the trial started on March 3, 2025. The parties asked for further judicial assistance, so the court arranged an in-trial pre-trial on the same day. Mr. Dhillon’s December 2, 2024, offer met all the criteria of Rule 24(12) to entitle him to full recovery of costs.
33. Further, this offer was identical to the offers made on November 7, 2023, and June 14, 2022. Given that those offer terms were in place, continuously, from June 14, 2022, to the start of trial, the court finds that Mr. Dhillon is entitled to full recovery costs from June 14, 2022, to the end of the case.
34. Even when the court finds that a party is entitled to full recovery costs, this does not automatically equate to the legal fees charged to a client. The court is still required to apply the standards of reasonableness and proportionality[7].
Unreasonable Behaviour
35. Mr. Dhillon argues that Ms. Sandhu was unreasonable in the litigation in terms of delays. There is no evidence to make this finding.
36. Taking a case to trial does not, in and of itself lead to the inexorable conclusion that a party’s position is unreasonable. Parties are permitted to litigate. As noted above, Ms. Sandhu was successful on some of the issues.
37. Mr. Dhillon also argues that Ms. Sandhu was unreasonable in pursuing supplementary trial reasons. I agree. Having made an admission at trial, Ms. Sandhu effectively sought to undo that admission in the supplementary trial portion of this case. Her argument was not reasonable and had no chance of success.
38. The ultimate financial result of this trial is out of all proportion to the legal costs. That does not mean that the winning party is not entitled to a costs award. The parties were represented by counsel through the entire case. The parties knew the financial stakes (as reflected by their agreed joint comparative NFP document).
39. Given the financial positions of the parties, the legal costs were bound to exceed the financial result of the trial. Perhaps an obvious statement in retrospect, but this case should have settled. The court recognizes that this problem was not caused by Mr. Dhillon. Starting on August 24, 2021, and through to the end of 2024, Mr. Dhillon made legitimate, sincere and reasonable efforts to settle this litigation. Those efforts fell on deaf ears.
40. Costs are not an exact science. As noted above, the court’s goal is to arrive at a costs award which is reasonable and proportionate in the circumstances of the case.
41. In this case, the court finds that reasonable and proportional costs are $52,250, which accounts for the fact that Mr. Dhillon was successful on seven of ten trial issues and he served an offer which would have attracted full recovery costs effective June 14, 2022.
Security for costs cannot be ordered at this stage of the proceeding.
42. Paragraph 18 of Mr. Dhillon’s submission seeks “security for his costs in this proceeding”. The court is unsure whether Mr. Dhillon is using this term in the technical sense (Family Law Rule 24(13)) or in the generic sense of saying that a significant costs award will deter Ms. Sandhu.
43. To the extent that Mr. Dhillon is seeking an order for security for costs from this court, the court cannot provide such an order at this stage of the proceedings. Having rendered the trial reasons, the court no longer has jurisdiction to order security for costs. Rule 24(13) clearly contemplates costs as a pre-trial matter, to be determined on a motion.
The court declines to order that the costs are in the nature of support.
44. Mr. Dhillon asks the court to order that the costs are in the nature of support so that they can be enforced by the Family Responsibility Office (FRO).
45. While the court understands Mr. Dhillon’s frustration with the litigation, there is no basis for a FRO enforcement order.
46. Mr. Dhillon’s answer (dated February 9, 2021) did not seek spousal support. His claim was not amended to seek spousal support. This costs award is not in the nature of spousal support.
Disposition
47. The applicant is ordered to pay costs in the amount of $52,250 by September 14, 2026, at 4pm.
48. Post judgment interest runs at 4%, starting on September 15, 2026.
49. A draft judgment may be sent for my signature to: scj.judicialassistant.brampton@ontario.ca.
50. Given that the applicant elected not to make costs submissions, her consent to the content and format of the draft judgment is dispensed with.
_______________
L.B. Stewart, J.
Released: August 14, 2026
CITATION: Sandhu v. Dhillon, 2026 ONSC 4609
COURT FILE NO.: FS-21-00000003-0000
DATE: 2026 08 10
ONTARIO
SUPERIOR COURT OF JUSTICE
B E T W E E N:
AKSHPREET KAUR SANDHU
Applicant
- and –
MANINDERPAL SINGH DHILLON
Respondent
COSTS ENDORSEMENT FOR TRIAL
Stewart J.
Released: August 14, 2026
1The email serving the notice of appeal was attached as schedule A to the respondent’s costs submissions, although the notice of appeal was not.
2Comparative NFP statement jointly submitted by both parties during trial on March 14, 2025.
3Mr. Dhillon did pay spousal support to Ms. Sandhu pursuant to a temporary order made February. The parties agreed that Mr. Dhillon paid 12 months of spousal support, from January, 2021 to December, 2021, paying $2200 each month.
4Section 131(1), Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.C.43.
5Serra v. Serra, 2009 ONCA 395, at para 8.
6Delellis v. Delellis, 2005 CanLII 36447 (ONSC) at para 9.
7Kamboh v. Majeed, 2021 ONSC 1465, at para. 30.