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    One way to check is to take a voltage meter and check the voltage across the legs, if it's double what from live to neutral then it's separate phases. Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 9:00
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    A pic of the breakers in the box would help immensely. Barring that, generally speaking, if the breakers are normal, full-size (not skinny, half-size "double-stuffs") and they're right next to each other in the box, they'll be on different legs. If there's space between them or on opposite sides of the box, all bets are off. See - providing a pic (and one of the box's label, so we know the make/model of the panel) will give the experts here concrete evidence instead of your/my guesswork. Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 11:38
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    Yes, can you get us a photo of the breakers in the breaker box, and can you measure the voltage between the two legs? Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 11:44
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    This is really common. I am south of you but we use basically the same code with some minor local exceptions. The Handel ties are for safety. In the early days of mwbc the handle ties were not required and 2 things happened people got hurt working on the circuit when the other circuit was live getting shocked by the neutral, the second was people move breakers and put both breakers on the same leg overloading the neutral so Handel ties were mandated to solve both problems. I would also suggest to stay with newer post on electrical there have been a lot of changes in the last 6 years. Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 13:43
  • Thanks everyone for your comments. I updated the post with pictures of the breakers and a picture of the box' label as well. Commented Oct 27, 2020 at 17:48