Obtaining a divorce is the legal end to a marriage. It’s important to note that divorce does not finalise any parenting arrangements or property settlement. You would generally apply for a divorce after all parenting and/or financial matters have been resolved, unless there’s an important or strategic reason to do so earlier.
The divorce process is relatively straightforward and in fact, many people don’t engage lawyers to do their divorces unless there’s some complexity to their matter.
An application for divorce can be made by either party or jointly.
To apply for a divorce, you must prove that:
You can still apply for a divorce if you and your husband/wife have been or are living in the same household.
There are some extra steps and documents that need to be produced including the filing of an Affidavit from an adult third party who has firsthand knowledge of the separation under one roof.
In order to apply for a divorce, there must be a separation period of at least 12 months. However, the 12-month period does not necessarily need to be continuous.
The law allows you to resume cohabitation for a period of up to three months without annulling the prior period of separation for the purposes of building up 12 months separation. In order to determine whether a period of resumption of cohabitation will affect your overall period of separation, the following conditions must all be met:
If you have resumed cohabitation for three months or longer, you will need to restart the 12-month separation period.
You can apply for a property settlement at any time after separation, however, once a divorce order has been issued, you will only have 12 months to make an application to the Court.
After that time, any application for a property settlement or spousal maintenance can only be made if:
That’s why we tend to encourage resolving all financial matters before applying for a divorce unless there’s a strategic reason to divorce first.
Applications are processed online these days. The Family Court of Australia has a Divorce Service Kit which you can access here.
The application process is as follows:
In contrast to obtaining a divorce, it is difficult to have a marriage annulled (made void) and it’s not a common application in Australia.
The Family Court will only make a declaration that a marriage is null and void in very limited and rare circumstances. These circumstances include bigamous marriages and where the consent of a party to a marriage was obtained by fraud or under duress.
03 9006 8907 info@emerafamilylaw.com.au
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