Know your share of the property before anybody signs

No. There is no legislated starting point of half, and the published research does not show one either. In the largest Australian study of separated parents, mothers received 57% of the property on average. In an analysis of 200 court decisions, the average was 54% to mothers. Both are averages across very different households, which is why a range worked out on your own figures tells you more than either.

It is worked out in four steps, set out in section 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 and restructured by the Family Law Amendment Act 2024 from 10 June 2025. First, value everything you both own and owe. Second, assess what each of you contributed. Third, look at where each of you stands now and in the future. Fourth, check the result is just and equitable. There is no formula, so the answer is a range, not one number.

Yes. Superannuation goes into the pool as property, and it has since 2002. A court order or a binding financial agreement can require a fund to move part of one balance into the other person's fund. It does not become cash. It stays super and stays locked up under the usual rules. A couple who split the house evenly and each keep their own super have divided only part of the pool.

It can. Since 10 June 2025 the Act says so expressly. Section 79(4)(ca) requires the effect of family violence on a party's ability to contribute to be taken into account, and section 79(5)(a) requires its effect on that party's current and future circumstances to be taken into account as well. Section 4AB now lists economic and financial abuse, such as controlling money or superannuation, sabotaging employment or building debt in somebody else's name, as examples of family violence.

Two years from the day you separated if you were in a de facto relationship, under section 44(5). If you were married, there is no deadline until a divorce order takes effect, and then twelve months from that day, under section 44(3). Past either limit you need the court's permission to apply, and it is not given as a matter of course. Reaching an agreement does not stop the clock. Only filing something does.

No. A divorce ends the marriage but divides nothing, and consent orders on the property can be filed at any time after separation. The order matters, though. Once a divorce order takes effect, a married couple has twelve months to apply for property orders, so applying for the divorce first starts a clock that did not exist before. The divorce is a separate application with its own court fee of $1,170.

Nobody gets the house automatically, and it does not simply go to the person whose name is on the title. The house is one asset in the pool. Who keeps it mostly depends on whether either of you can afford to refinance the mortgage in one name and pay the other out, and on what the children need. That is a separate question from what percentage of the pool each of you is entitled to.

An inheritance usually goes into the pool, but it counts as a contribution by the person who received it. It is not automatically theirs to keep, and it is not simply shared either. When it arrived and what happened to it matter most. Money that came in early and went onto a mortgage you both paid down for years has been largely absorbed. An inheritance received after separation is usually left almost entirely with the person who received it.

Almost exactly. De facto couples are dealt with under section 90SM rather than section 79, and since 10 June 2025 the two read almost identically. Two things differ. You must first pass a gateway test in section 90SB, and you have two years from the end of the relationship to apply. In Western Australia, de facto property matters are dealt with under the state's Family Court Act 1997 instead.

Since 10 June 2025 the Family Law Act deals with pets directly. A court can order that a companion animal belongs to one of you, is transferred, or is sold. It cannot order shared time with a pet. It looks at things like who bought it, who cared for it, any family violence or cruelty, and how attached the children are. Deciding who keeps a pet does not change the percentage split of everything else.

Yes. The law recognises separation under one roof. What matters is whether the relationship ended, not whether somebody moved out. A court looks at things like whether you still share a bedroom, whether your finances have been separated, and whether family and friends have been told. The date matters, because it starts real deadlines, such as the two year limit for de facto couples.

It depends mostly on the route you take. Filing consent orders costs a court fee of $215, and published fixed legal fees for drawing them up run from about $2,000 to $4,400 per party. A contested case that goes to a final hearing is on another scale, with published cost guidance of $25,000 to $80,000 a side. Court fees are published and exact. Legal costs are not.

It shows every factor as a number of percentage points, so you can see what is moving your range and by how much. It prices up to nine ways of settling, from consent orders through to a final hearing, on what reaches you after the cost of getting there. It also works out the offered percentage at which accepting beats pursuing, so you can see whether spending $25,000 to argue on would leave you ahead.

Because the four steps are public, structured and published in thousands of judgments, and arithmetic scales. Published fixed fees for property consent orders run from $2,000 to $4,400, and senior family lawyers publish hourly rates of $440 to $660. What a lawyer gives you that this does not is advice on your own case from somebody licensed to give it.