Divorce

A divorce is only a legal end to a marriage and does not determine anything about property division or children’s arrangements. These are all considered separate things in family law – you can either do one, all, or none.

Australia has no-fault divorce. This means that there is no need to show any wrongdoing of either person.

The ground for divorce is that the marriage has irretrievably broken down, shown by the parties having been separated for at least 12 months.

This means that you will have to wait 12 months from your separation date before you can apply for a divorce.

Either you or your ex-spouse may apply for a divorce. Alternatively, you and your ex-spouse may jointly apply for a divorce. The benefit of a joint application is that you will not have to pay additional legal costs in serving your ex-spouse with the divorce papers, and if you have children under 18 years of age, you will not have to attend the divorce hearing.

If you make a single (not joint) divorce application, you will be required to have your ex-spouse personally served with the divorce papers. If you have children under 18 years of age, you will also be required to attend the divorce hearing.

If you’ve been married less than 2 years, or living separated under the one roof within the last 12 months before applying for a divorce, things are more tricky and you need to supply extra information to the Court about these circumstances. If this is the case for you, talk with Tamara Hensen, our family lawyer at Samford Family Law.

We do always recommend you be mindful that, once the divorce has been granted, the clock then starts ticking and you will have 12 months from the divorce date to have sorted out your property settlement or risk being considered ‘out of time’.

Contact us to obtain a fixed fee quote for preparing and lodging your divorce application. Once we have some information from you about your situation, and whether a sole or joint application is to be done, we can provide a fixed fee quote.