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Finalising property matters prior to Divorce
When you separate, ongoing uncertainty about your property can be unsettling and stressful. What many people don’t understand is that divorce is a procedural matter, ancillary and incidental to the division of your property. Essentially, divorce is only the legal dissolution of marriage.
Although the divorce process requires that you live separately for at least 12 months, you can take steps immediately to separate your assets and finances. If you are able to negotiate a fair outcome with your partner, you will ultimately save yourself the time, anxiety, uncertainty and expense of a court hearing. An experienced family lawyer can help guide you towards a realistic end result, and may facilitate informal negotiations between you and your partner.
If you successfully reach an agreement about how your property will be shared, that settlement will need to be formalised. There are two ways in which this can be done. Firstly, your lawyer may prepare Consent Orders on your behalf, which are then submitted to the court for administrative approval. In this case, a Registrar of the court will check that settlement is “just and equitable”, in other words, that it is fair to both parties. In the alternative, if both you and your partner have legal representation, your lawyers may draft a Binding Financial Agreement (“BFA”). A BFA may be formalised privately and does not need to be lodged with the court. However, it has the same effect and enforceability of orders made by the Family Court of Australia.
This article supplied by Lander & Rodgers
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