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The purpose of this joint paper is to provide a snapshot of the current financial dispute regime for de facto relationships addressing:
- the salient features of the new Commonwealth legislation in Part VIIIAB of the Family Law Act; and
- the implications for estates lawyers of the new Commonwealth legislation.
A colleague at Moores Legal, Peer Szabo, emailed Geoff Wilson on 27 February 2009 and tongue in cheek indicated he was placing the following advertisement in the public notices of the Age and Herald /Sun:
“Congratulations to those in de facto relationships of 2 years or more. You are deemed to be legally married as of 1 March 2009.”
(Moores Legal Family Law Department)
The commencement of the new Commonwealth legislation was heralded with salacious media coverage with particular focus on the mistress laws. For instance the headlines of Sydney’s The Sunday Telegraph of 1 March 2009 read:
“New laws to rock cheating husbands PAY YOUR MISTRESS
CHEATING husbands will, from today, be liable to pay their mistresses settlements if they dump them.
Male and female lovers of married persons will potentially have the same rights as spouses in any divorce and be able to claim a share of their income, assets and even superannuation.
The Government’s Family Law Amendment, which takes effect from today, extends the rights of de facto and gay couples but also opens the way for mistresses to receive the same settlements as divorced wives……"
At the risk of recycling previous papers which Geoff has delivered to this session in past Symposiums, he, together with Greg Cox, will endeavour to focus the paper on the new legislation.
Click on the PDF link to download a full version of this paper.
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