If you are married and decide to divorce, the divorce is granted through what is known as a Divorce Order. A Divorce Order is made when it is established that the marriage has broken down. This is a very difficult and life changing period in your life. The burden and stress of telling family and friends that your relationship has ended juggled with the stress of legally ending the relationship with a lawyer.

In order to establish the marriage has broken down you need to have been separated for a minimum of 12 months. This does not mean that you can not live in the same house whilst separated, as couples who separate usually don’t have the finances or resources to move out to another home during the period of separation. You can file an application for divorce after you and your spouse have been separated for a period of 12 months. The application can be made by one spouse, or jointly by both spouses.

Let our experienced Family Lawyers help you during this stressful period and ease the burden of representing you in the divorce and separation process, followed by making an application seeking a Divorce Order.

Let our strong Family Law team organise for service of the Divorce Application upon your spouse and represent you at the hearing before the Court. A Divorce Order will be granted by the Court. The official issue of the Divorce Order will be issued 1 month and 1 day after the Hearing date. Once the divorce order has been issued then both parties are free to remarry if they wish to do so, however neither party may remarry prior to the issue of the Divorce Order.

Financial and parenting issues and proceedings are kept separate to divorce proceedings. Property and Parenting orders are dealt with through an application to the Court seeking orders, or can be resolved through resolution by agreement of the parties. This process can occur before or after the divorce. If you have separated from your spouse they you may begin the process of resolving financial and parenting matters. However, this differs if a Divorce Order is made, time limits apply to financial and parenting matters once a Divorce Order is made this means that an Application to settle property or spouse maintenance must be brought to Court within the year of the Divorce Order becoming final.

De Facto Relationship & Separation

Marriages are issued with marriage certificates to show the commencement of a marriage and a divorce to formally document the end of the marriage. De facto relationships unfortunately have no formal certificates or documentation to show the commencement of the relationship nor the end. For this reason, parties are usually in dispute when determining the length of the relationship noting that the Family Law Act applies only to a de-facto relationship longer than 2 years. If you have been in a de-facto relationship for less then 2 years and have made financial contributions and there is a child as a result of that relationship then the Court may assist with settling the finances.

Splitting the Assets

The Family Law Act 1975 says that splitting the assets in a divorce must be ‘just’ and ‘equitable’. This means that many factors affect the splitting and dividing of the

assets in a divorce. It is incorrect to assume that the assets will be split 50/50. This is simply because many things are considered when it comes to dividing assets, including but not limited to starting assets, current and past incomes, health, age, number of dependants and their ages. Therefore, there is no set formula used to split the assets. The superannuation splitting law treats superannuation as a different type of property. It lets separating couples value their superannuation and split superannuation payments, although this is not mandatory. When splitting the assets the courts will also consider:

· Calculating what you own and what you owe, this is classified as your assets and debts and what they are worth

· Consider the direct financial contributions by each individual to the marriage or de facto relationship such as wage and salary earnings

· Consider the indirect financial contributions by each individual such as any gifts and any inheritances from families

· Consider the non-financial contributions to the marriage or de facto relationship such as caring for any children and homemaking, and

· Assess future requirements – the court will consider things like age, health, financial resources, care of children and ability to earn