How property is divided after separation: the four steps, the 2025 changes, and the deadlines

The first thing most people say in a first meeting about separation is some version of “I just want what’s fair”. The second is a number. The number is almost always 50.

I understand where it comes from. It is not where the law starts.

Property settlement under the Family Law Act 1975 is an assessment, done in four steps, and since 10 June 2025 those steps are written into the Act rather than inferred from forty years of cases. Here is how it works, what changed, and the two dates you cannot miss.

Step one: identify the pool

Everything either of you owns or owes, in your own name, jointly, through a company or a trust, or in a superannuation fund. The home, investment property, the business and its goodwill, shares, cars, bank accounts, the money a parent lent, the credit card debt, the tax debt that has not been assessed yet. All of it, valued as at now, not as at separation.

Two things catch people here.

Superannuation is in. It is usually the second-largest asset in the pool and it is the one people most often leave out of an informal agreement. It can be split by order or agreement and the fund then transfers a share to the other party’s account.

Disclosure is now a statutory duty. The duty of full and frank disclosure used to live in the court rules. From 10 June 2025 it is in the Act, it is ongoing, and it covers income, assets, liabilities and financial resources. The consequences of not complying range from the court drawing inferences against you, to costs orders, to contempt. If you are thinking about moving money before the pool is counted, the honest advice is: do not. It gets found, and the finding is worse than the money.

Step two: contributions

What each of you put in, from the start of the relationship to now. Financial contributions: the deposit, the salary, the inheritance. Non-financial contributions: renovations, the business built at nights. Contributions as homemaker and parent, which the Act treats as contributions in their own right and which over a long marriage are generally treated as equal to the breadwinner’s.

New since June 2025: the court must consider the effect of family violence on a party’s ability to contribute. Previously this came from a 1997 case, Kennon v Kennon, and applied in narrow circumstances. Now it is in the Act. Where coercive or controlling behaviour, including economic abuse, made one party’s contributions harder or kept them out of the workforce, that is weighed. A finding of family violence does not automatically mean a bigger share; it means the contribution and future-needs assessment takes it into account.

The Act’s definition of family violence was also expanded to spell out economic and financial abuse: controlling the money, withholding living expenses, sabotaging employment, coercing someone into debt, dowry-related coercion.

Step three: current and future circumstances

Where the contributions assessment lands, the court then adjusts for the future. Age and health. Income and earning capacity. Who has the care of children and for how long. Whether one party gave up a career. The length of the relationship. The standard of living. The effect of any family violence on future needs.

This is where a 55/45 or 60/40 outcome usually comes from. A parent with primary care of two children under ten and a 15-year gap in their CV has different future needs from a partner on a professional salary, and the Act requires that to be reflected.

Step four: just and equitable

The last step is a check: standing back, is the result just and equitable in all the circumstances? It is also the step that decides whether to make an order at all. In a short relationship where each party kept their finances separate, the just and equitable answer may be that nobody adjusts anything.

The pet question

For the first time, companion animals are a defined category of property under new sections 79(6) and 90SM(6). The court can order that one party keep the animal, that it be transferred, or that it be sold. The factors are specific: who cared for the animal, who paid for it, any family violence involving the animal, each party’s attachment, and the welfare of the animal. It cannot be shared on an alternating basis by order. That ends an argument that used to be settled, badly, by whoever had the dog at the time.

The two deadlines

• MarriedApply within 12 months of the divorce order becoming final. Note: separation does not start the clock. Divorce does.
• De factoApply within two years of the date the relationship ended.
• Missed it?You need the court's leave to apply out of time. It is not automatic, and the longer the delay, the harder it gets.

The married deadline causes the most trouble because people assume they have a year from separation. They have a year from the divorce, which can be years later. The safer course is to finalise the property settlement before or alongside the divorce, not after.

How matters actually resolve

In our practice, nine in ten family law matters resolve without a final hearing: by negotiation, by mediation, or by a settlement reached after proceedings start but well before trial. The outcome is then documented in one of two ways.

What does not work is an informal arrangement. Transferring the house without orders attracts duty. Leaving the superannuation unaddressed leaves a claim open. And an agreement that is not documented in one of those two forms does not stop the other party applying later, inside the time limits above.

What to do first

1. Write down the pool as you understand it, including superannuation and debts, with rough values. We will tell you what needs a formal valuation.
2. Collect your financial documents. Tax returns for three years, super statements, bank statements, loan statements, any trust or company documents. Disclosure is a duty, and being first and complete is a strategic advantage.
3. Note the date of separation and, if married, the date of any divorce. Those two dates set the deadlines.
4. Do not move assets or run up debt. It is counted anyway, and the court draws its own conclusions about why.

Property settlement is the part of a separation that is most within your control. It responds to preparation, to disclosure done properly, and to a realistic view of the range early on. The clients who do well are not the ones who fight hardest. They are the ones who know, by the end of the first meeting, what a fair outcome looks like and what it will cost to get there.