BestLaw Firm on the Central Coast, specialising in Family Law
Cheryl Edwards, founder and Company Principal of CopperTree Family Law, recognised the need for a specialist family law firm on the Central Coast Family Law that puts service and excellence at the top of the list. Cheryl’s life experience and many years of working as a family lawyer mean that she understands the complexities that surround property settlement and parenting arrangement related matters. But many good lawyers do not communicate well with clients, adding to the stress of the process. This is where CopperTree Family Law raises the bar – excellence in the law and excellence in communication.
Together with you, our family lawyers work on achieving the best family law outcome for you. The aim is to be mindful of every dollar you are spending on the legal process and to not waste money that can be used for your future. All parties can benefit from considering the court’s likely position should a matter escalate to the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. At CopperTree Family Law, we protect and advocate for your interests at all times, while advising you of the legal framework under which your needs will be considered.
There is no automatic 50/50 split in Australia. A court works through four steps: identify and value the whole asset pool including superannuation and debts; assess each person’s financial and non-financial contributions; assess future needs such as care of children, age, health and earning capacity; then check the overall result is just and equitable. Most separating couples on the Central Coast never see a courtroom. They reach agreement and formalise it through consent orders.
No, and usually you shouldn’t wait. Property and superannuation can be settled at any time after separation, and there’s an advantage to doing it early: valuations are current, memories are fresh, and neither of you has spent two years building a case. A divorce doesn’t divide anything. What it does is start a clock.
Married: you have 12 months from the date your divorce becomes final to apply to the court for property settlement or spousal maintenance orders.
De facto: you have two years from the date of separation.
Past those windows you need the court’s permission to apply at all, and permission is not guaranteed. There’s no time limit on agreeing something between yourselves — but there is a hard limit on asking a court to decide it, or to formalise it. We have met people who divorced quickly to move on and later discovered the equity and the superannuation were no longer on the table.
Australian family law is gender-neutral, so there is no set entitlement for a wife, a husband or a same-sex spouse. The outcome is driven by the size of the pool, each person’s contributions and each person’s future needs. In practice the parent who cares for the children most of the time and has the lower earning capacity often receives a larger share of the non-superannuation assets — but that’s the result of the four steps, not an entitlement anyone starts with.
Outcomes commonly land between 55/45 and 70/30, with the larger share going to the person with greater future needs. Long marriages with similar contributions and no dependent children sit closest to equal. Where one person cared for children for years while the other built an income, the gap widens. Anyone quoting you a firm percentage before they’ve seen your asset pool is guessing, and if they’re quoting it to win your business, that should tell you something.
No. Australia has had no-fault divorce since 1975. Adultery has no bearing on how property is divided, and the court does not apportion blame for a marriage ending. This is the single most common misconception we correct in first meetings, usually to someone’s considerable disappointment.
The one narrow exception is wastage. Where a person deliberately or recklessly diminished the asset pool — gambling it away, spending heavily on an affair, selling assets below value out of spite — that conduct can be brought into account. The test is about the damage to the pool, not the betrayal.
A business is an asset in the pool and needs a proper valuation, which is rarely the figure in the accounts. Depending on the structure — sole trader, company, partnership or trust — value may turn on goodwill, future maintainable earnings, or simply the net assets of a business that cannot operate without its owner. Where one person runs it and the other doesn’t, the usual outcome is that the operator keeps the business and compensates the other from the rest of the pool, because forcing a sale destroys value for both of you.
Trusts need particular care. Control of a trust can be treated as a financial resource even where the assets aren’t legally yours, and that catches people out.
It goes into the pool, but it counts as an initial contribution by you. It is not automatically excluded and it is not automatically protected, which surprises most people who ask.
Weight depends heavily on time and on what happened to the asset. A house you brought into a 30-year marriage, where the mortgage was paid from joint income and both of you renovated it, is treated very differently to one you brought into a three-year marriage and kept in your own name. Inheritances follow similar logic: received recently and kept separate, strong protection; received early and spent on the family home, considerably less.
If you want certainty rather than argument, that’s what a binding financial agreement does.
There is no such thing as alimony in Australia. “Alimony” and “spousal support” are American terms that turn up in Australian searches because of American television. The Australian equivalent is spousal maintenance, governed by the Family Law Act 1975, and it works differently to the US model in two important ways: it’s usually ordered for a fixed period rather than indefinitely, and there is no formula.
There isn’t one, and any figure quoted to you is invented. Because maintenance is assessed on individual need and individual capacity rather than by formula, no meaningful average exists and none is published. What we can do at a first meeting is work through your actual figures and give you a realistic range for your circumstances, which is more useful than a national average would be even if one existed.
Most commonly a fixed period or a lump sum, enough to allow retraining, re-entry to work, or transition after a long marriage. Indefinite orders exist but are rare, generally reserved for cases involving age, disability or long-term incapacity. Maintenance ends on remarriage, and re-partnering affects it because a new partner’s financial support goes to the question of need.
If you’ve separated and have no access to funds, you don’t have to wait for the final settlement to be resolved. Interim maintenance can be sought while the matter is on foot, and urgent maintenance where the need is immediate. It’s one of the more common early applications we make for clients who have left the family home with nothing but the car.
The same time limits apply as for property: 12 months from a final divorce, two years from a de facto separation.
Three routes. A handshake, which is not binding and leaves you exposed indefinitely. Consent orders, where the court formally approves what you’ve agreed. Or a binding financial agreement, a private contract that keeps the division out of the court’s hands entirely. Only the second and third actually end your exposure.
Four requirements under the Family Law Act, and missing any one puts the whole agreement at risk. It must be in writing and signed by both parties. Each party must receive independent legal advice about the effect of the agreement on their rights and its advantages and disadvantages. Each solicitor must give a signed certificate confirming that advice. And each party must receive a copy of the other’s certificate.
This is why one lawyer cannot act for both of you. It isn’t us being awkward or doubling the bill. It’s a validity requirement, and an agreement without it is worth very little.
At CopperTree Family Law, we protect and advocate for your interest at all times, while advising you of the legal framework under which your needs will be considered.
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