Divorce and Separation
Changing Your Name and Address After Getting Divorced
Property and Asset Settlement
Child Custody
Co-Parenting and Managing a Separation with Children
Are you thinking of getting a divorce and want to know what the process is like? If you live in Brisbane or North Brisbane there are five key steps in the divorce process you should know about, and it’s important that you understand what each one entails before you get a divorce. This includes filing for divorce, property settlement, and managing co-parenting after separation. You should also seek legal help when you get a divorce, especially if you’ve got children and joint property.
Divorce and separation
The Federal Circuit Court of Australia has the jurisdiction to deal with divorces under the Family Law Act 1975. When granting a divorce, the Court doesn’t consider the reasons for the divorce but simply recognises that the marriage has ended due to a breakdown and the parties will not get back together.
If you have children under 18 years of age, the Court will only grant a divorce if you’ve made proper arrangements for them.
Who can apply for a divorce?
In Australia, you can apply for a divorce if you and/or your spouse meet one of the following criteria:
- You consider Australia your home country and will live in it permanently or
- You’re an Australian citizen or
- You normally live in Australia and have done so one year before filing for divorce.
If you married overseas and want to get a divorce in Australia, either you or your spouse must also meet the above criteria. You also need to give the Court a copy of your marriage certificate. If it isn’t in English, you should file an English translation of it, as well as an affidavit from the translator.
When applying for a divorce, you’ll need to prove to the Court that you’ve lived separately and apart from your spouse for at least one year and that you won’t resume married life. You can, however, be separated and still live in the same house – this is also known as being separated under one roof.
‘Separation under the one roof’… What does it mean?
You and your spouse can be separated but continue to live in the same house one year before applying for divorce. You’ll have to prove to the Court that you were separated during this time. You can find more information about this in the publication ‘Separated but living under one roof’.
How to apply for divorce
Simply register for the Commonwealth Courts Portal if you haven’t already done so, then complete the Application for Divorce online and pay the filing fee.
How much will a divorce cost?
The filing fee for a divorce application is $865. If you’re experiencing financial hardship or hold certain government concession cards, you may be eligible for a fee reduction. If so, you only have to pay $290.
What to do if you’ve been married less than two years
You should file a counselling certificate. You’ll have to attend counselling to get the certificate. Contact the Family Relationship Advice Line on 1800 050 321 to arrange counselling, or Relationships Australia on 1300 364 277. If you can’t attend counselling with your spouse, you should file an affidavit. You and your spouse should also have been separated for at least one year before applying for a divorce.
What if you have children and joint property?
The granting of a divorce doesn’t determine issues of property distribution or arrangements for children. For more information, please refer to ‘Property and Asset Settlement’, ‘Child Custody’, and ‘Co-parenting/Managing Separation with Children’ below.
Where to find more information on divorce and separation
Changing your name and address after getting divorced
Reverting to your maiden name or former name
If you took your spouse’s surname when you got married, you can revert to your maiden name or former following a divorce or separation.
If you were married in Australia, you should contact every organisation you have a personal account with to change your family name. You also have to provide proof of the name change, including the following:
- Australian birth certificate
- Australian marriage certificate
- Updated photo ID
- Identity documents
If you were born and/or married overseas and legally changed your family name to your spouse’s with the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages, you’ll have to legally change your name again with them.
If you were married in Australia, you’re entitled to be known by your maiden name regardless of your marital status. You simply need to prove the link between your married and maiden names with your marriage and birth certificates.
Who you need to notify when changing your name and address
Here are some organisations, governments, banks, and councils you’ll need to notify when you change your name and address after a divorce: They are all clickable links straight to the people you need to notify. We hope this helps you in these chaotic times.
You can easily and quickly notify organisations of your new name using a personalised name change kit.
Property and asset settlement
When your marriage is over, the financial ties between you and your ex should be finalised. For example, if you have a joint property, you should decide what happens to the house. You can either sell it or stay in it and your ex moves out.
What’s included in the property pool?
When you make a claim for property settlement, the Court will look at the property at the date of proceedings and at the date of Trial if it makes it all the way through the Court process. This means property, assets, and debt acquired after separation by either party will be brought into the property pool.
The property pool can include:
- Joint property
- Investments (shares, real estate)
- Interests in businesses and companies
- Interests or entitlements in trusts
- Interests in deceased estates
- Superannuation and savings
- Inheritance money or lottery win
- Boats
- Vehicles
- Jewellery
- Artwork
- Personal injury and compensation payouts
- Long service leave
- Life tenancy
- Pension entitlements
How to start the property settlement process
The property settlement process should start soon after you divorce or separate from your spouse. At Journey Family Lawyers, we usually start the process by advising you of your entitlements. Then with your instructions, we’ll draft a letter to send to your ex partner to try to reach an agreement without having to go to Court. If an agreement can’t be reached, we recommend mediation between you and your ex partner. If there’s little chance of mediation succeeding, however, Court proceedings will commence and mediation can follow.
Time constraints for property settlement
Your or your ex-partner must apply to the Court for property settlement within 12 months of your divorce or within two years of your separation. If you don’t commence property proceedings within these time limits, you could lose your rights.
How to formalise your property settlement
The best way to finalise your property settlement is through a consent order, which is an order that you and your ex have agreed to. If the Court finds the property settlement to be fair and reasonable, they’ll make the order.
If you can’t reach an agreement with your ex, you can apply to the Court for a financial order.
How is the value of the assets determined?
When negotiating a property settlement, the Court will determine the value of the assets of both parties.
- Furniture –The value of furniture is determined by their current sale value or second-hand value, not their replacement value or insurance value.
- Joint property –The value of the property is what someone’s prepared to pay for it. But if you won’t be selling it, the value of the home is determined by taking the average of all the valuations provided by reputable real estate agents in the area. This is enough for most negotiations, but if agreement cannot be reached on the value and it goes to trial, a proper valuation by a registered valuer will be needed.
- Cars, Motorbikes :These can be valued initially from a Redbook Valuation or a formal valuation obtained from a registered valuer.
- Boats; These can be either valued or comparative values can be obtained from Tradeboats online.
- Caravans These can be estimated initially from a Caravan online sales site or a formal Valuation
- Superannuation –The value of your superannuation is harder to determine as its current value is lower than it’ll be at your retirement age. A Journey Family Lawyer can use forms to obtain information from your superfund to determine your super’s value. The forms are included in the Superannuation Information Kit. Self-managed super funds are generally valued with the help of an accountant. Some special Superannuation funds like Military Super have their own valuation process.
How are assets and debts divided?
When deciding how to divide assets and debts, the Court looks at:
- What you’ve got and what you owe (assets and debts and what they’re worth)
- The parties’ direct financial contributions to the marriage (wage and salary earnings)
- The parties’ indirect financial contributions (gifts and inheritances from families)
- The non-financial contributions to the marriage (caring for children and homemaking)
- The parties’ future needs (the Court will consider your age, health, financial resources, care of children, ability to earn, etc).
- Any financial resource or entitlement that you have that is not actually ‘property’ that can be divided between you both.
How can you split superannuation?
While you can split superannuation entitlements between both parties, it doesn’t automatically convert the interests into cash. The entitlements are still subject to superannuation laws, eg. it’s normally retained until you reach retirement age.
You can split superannuation by:
- Entering into a formal written agreement
- Seeking a consent order
- Obtaining a court order if you can’t reach an agreement with your ex partner.
If you’re seeking a court order, the Court will tell the trustee of the superfund about the order by providing them with 28 days written notice. The trustee can attend the court hearing and object to the order you’re seeking. This is called providing the trustee with ‘procedural fairness’. Once the order is made, you should give a sealed copy of the order to the trustee.
Child custody
Child abuse or family violence
If your spouse abuses your children, you can apply to the Court to grant you custody of your children and you can ask the Courts to have your spouse leave the home by court order. If you’ll be leaving the house and your children are going with you, you should also take items that your children may need if you have time and also your special things that are of sentimental value.
If you’ve experienced domestic violence, you can apply to the Court for a domestic violence protection order to protect you, your children, and other relatives or associates from your ex.
While it’s important that your children have both parents involved in their lives, you should also make sure they’re protected from physical and psychological harm. The Family Law Act specifically says so.
What is ‘equal shared parental responsibility’?
Whether you or your spouse have full custody of your children, the Court will usually presume it’s in the children’s best interests if both of you have equal shared parental responsibility. In the case of child abuse or family violence, this won’t apply.
Equal shared parental responsibility means both parents are responsible for making long-term decisions for their children after a divorce or separation. This means you and your spouse should make parenting arrangements for your children, and they must be practical and in your children’s best interests. These could cover:
- Where your children live
- Who your children spend time and communicate with
- What time your children spend with the parent they don’t live with
- Times for your children to contact each parent by phone when they’re with the other parent
- Childcare or education
- Medical issues
- Religious or cultural practices
- Financial support for your children
- Changeover arrangements (Where and what time should changeover occur, who drives where)
- Arrangements for special days (Christmas, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays)
- How you and your ex-spouse will communicate with each other.
Who can you include in parenting arrangements?
If it’s in your children’s best interests, you can include the following people in your parenting arrangements:
- Grandparents
- Extended family
- Other people who are concerned with the welfare of children.
Most importantly, you and your spouse should both be included in the parenting arrangements, to the extent possible having regard to any child abuse or family violence.
Written parenting arrangements
There are three types of written parenting arrangements. If you and your spouse agree with the arrangements made for your children, you can record your agreement as a parenting plan or a consent order. If you disagree with the arrangements, you can apply to the Court for a parenting order. But you should try to reach an agreement through family dispute resolution before applying.
1. Parenting plan
A parenting plan sets out the care arrangements for your children. It must be signed and dated by both parents. There’s no need for it to be in a specific format or witnessed.
You can change the plan any time by making another written agreement. It must also be signed and dated by both parents.
2. Consent order
You can apply to the Court for a consent order to make your agreement legally binding. You can also apply for a consent order online. You’ll also have to complete an Annexure to draft consent parenting order. You should file this with the Court at the same time as you apply for the consent order.
The consent order should be signed and dated by a suitable witness, such as a Justice of the Peace. You’ll have to pay a $160 fee when you file an application for a consent order.
You can change a consent order by making another consent order, parenting plan, or parenting order.
3. Parenting order
A parenting order is an order made by the Court regarding arrangements for your children and your parental responsibilities. The Family Law Act sets out what the Court should consider when making parenting orders, including what’s in your children’s best interests.
A parenting order is legally enforceable, so if you disobey the order you can face serious consequences.
Child support payments
Depending on who has custody of your children, you can determine the amount of child support you need to pay or receive by visiting Child Support at the Department of Human Services. If you want to change a child support assessment due to special circumstances, you can complete an application form to change the assessment. Your child support will be changed if there are indeed special circumstances and the change would be fair to both parents and the children.
Sometimes if your Income is going to radically increase or decrease, you could lodge an Estimate Of Income but be careful to read the guidelines or get legal advice before you do.
Co-parenting and managing a separation with children
Have your children’s best interests in mind
When co-parenting/managing separation with children, you and your ex should always have your children’s best interests in mind. Here are some factors to consider:
- Protecting your children from harm
- Ensuring your children have a meaningful relationship with both parents
- The views of your children (Giving weight to their age and maturity)
- The relationships your children have with each parent and other family members
- The capacity and participation of each parent when parenting and spending time with the children
- The effect of any changes to the children’s circumstance
- The practical difficulty and expense of any arrangements.
- The relationship the children have with each other sibling
What is ‘equal shared care’?
Equal shared care means your children spend half the time living with you and the other half with your ex.
In many cases, however, an equal shared-care arrangement isn’t in the children’s best interests, so the Court will consider an alternative arrangement. For example, your children will live with you and spend every second weekend, plus one night each week and half of the school holidays with your ex. Other arrangements such as 4 or 5 day weekends every second week, or 8 days a fortnight with one parent and 6 days a fortnight with the other are also common. It depends on what is best for the children.
What if you’re relocating?
If you’ll be relocating with your children, you should get your ex’s written consent or do it with a court order. On the other hand, if your ex moves away with your children and it affects your children’s ability to spend time with you, you can obtain a recovery order requiring your ex to return your children.
Tips for successful co-parenting
Here are some tips for successful co-parenting:
- Don’t use your children to relay messages to their other parent.
- Speak directly to your ex partner but keep it businesslike and to the point
- Don’t talk badly about your ex to your kids or in their hearing
- Be considerate towards your ex-partner
- Respect your children’s time with your ex-partner
- Don’t do something that would make it hard for your children to have both parents attend their weddings
- Don’t let another adult’s angst affect the decisions you make in your parenting arrangements with your ex-partner
- Plan your time when your children are away, so that you don’t mope
- Don’t air your grievances on social media, even if you’ve blocked your ex-partner. Someone will pass it on and one day the kids may read it too..
Would you like some guidance through your divorce? Contact Journey Family Lawyers Brisbane today
With more than 30 years’ experience, Journey Family Lawyers Brisbane can guide you through the process of divorce and help you achieve a positive outcome. Our services include divorce, separation, property settlement, and child support. We’ve helped thousands of Australians through their separation, so call us now on (07) 3832 5999 for a free 15-minute consultation. You’ll get personal advice from one of our friendly specialist family lawyers to ensure your divorce goes as smoothly as possible.
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