Blog

Consider this scenario: Two women are in a relationship. Let’s call them Kylie and Rachel. Kylie and Rachel decide that they want to have a child together and want to use donor sperm to conceive. They decide that Kylie should attempt to get pregnant using an embryo created from the...

Tash Priestly explains the differences between solicitors and barristers, and why you might need one or both of them for your matter.

The Child Support Agency can make an assessment about how much each parent should pay to financially support their children. It uses a formula based on taxable income and the number of nights that the children are in each parents’ care.

The government has released exposure drafts of the suite of their proposed legislative changes to superannuation. While they are just draft and subject to changes both before they are tabled into parliament and after any horse trading before becoming law they do bear some consideration. While the focus of the...

Anyone with children will tell you they are expensive and that expense only increases following separation where there is now the added burden of managing two separate households.  Yet it is particularly following separation that parents feel pressured to maintain the lifestyle that their children were accustomed too prior to...

When a family who owns a farm, or rural property, experiences a relationship separation, things can get very complicated (and costly) particularly if you end up in Court. However, there are options to protect the farm, and yourselves, from a lengthy and costly battle.

Family law mediation, also known as Family Dispute Resolution, is a process option available to parents to try to negotiate post separation parenting arrangements that are in the best interest of their children. It also encourages separating couples to parent cooperatively, rather than through other process options such as Court that...

Firstly, “alimony” is not a term used in Australian family law. The term is an American one that many of us may have heard on TV or movies. In Australia, the entitlement one spouse may have to financial support after the relationship has ended is called spouse maintenance or spousal maintenance.

Pre-Nups (or “pre-nuptual agreements”) are generally the colloquial or American term for “Financial Agreements”. Under Australian family law, couples can enter into these types or agreement which are meant to cover in a binding way financial matters relating to their relationship. These agreements are meant to remove a Court’s jurisdiction...

In a recent Federal Court decision of Trustees of the Property of Morris (Bankrupt) v Morris (Bankrupt) the court gave some fresh guidance on the status of superannuation death benefits when received by bankrupts.

SBS Insight  “Where There’s a Will” – Family Provision and Costs On Tuesday 2nd August SBS aired an episode of Insight titled Where There’s a Will. For those who are unfamiliar with the show, Insight, airs every week or so on SBS. Hosted by journalist Jenny Brockie, each episode focuses...

The Family Law Act now provides essentially the same rights to de facto couples that married couples have in relation to division of property and spousal maintenance. So how do you know if you are at risk of a claim or have the right to bring a claim? The first...