Property Settlement

When Harry met Sally: Follow their story in Family Law Property Settlement

Follow Sally and Harry’s story each week: How will Sally resolve her family law property settlement claim against her former partner Harry?

Sally’s story so far

It’s April 2017 and Sally has just returned home from dropping her little ones off at school. The start of a new term and Benny and Izzy had been so excited to be back amongst their friends. The twins were only 5 years old and loving being at Prep school.

It was a constant struggle for Sally since she had separated from Harry just over a year ago now.

They had been married for 10 years. The first few years of their relationship had been carefree and without children, they had mostly just concentrated on each other and having a good time.

Sally had continued in full time employment before the twins were born. She had worked in the fashion industry as a buyer for one of the large department stores and had loved her job.

Sally has stopped work just before the twins were born. She hadn’t full appreciated what having children would entail but she and Harry could not have been more delighted when they were born. Sadly though, over the last 5 years or so, they had gradually grown apart.

It wasn’t easy now being effectively a sole parent. The children did spend time with Harry but only when he said he had the time. Sally didn’t doubt that Harry loved the children but his time was so limited. He was constantly travelling away from Brisbane on work and often working long hours even when he was at home.

It was hard for Sally then to know when she could be available to commit to regular work hours, even on a part time or casual basis.  But she was feeling very much that she needed to organise her financial affairs and to reach some property settlement with Harry. Unless she could that, it was just so difficult to plan for the future.

Sally was feeling very burdened, not knowing where she stood or how to go about making a property settlement with Harry.

She didn’t know what she would be entitled to from their property. Sally still held some shares that she had bought before she married Harry but otherwise, most of their property- essentially their house and superannuation- had been accumulated from Harry’s earnings during their relationship.

What should Sally do towards obtaining a family law property settlement?

We would recommend to Sally that she has an initial consultation with a family lawyer experienced in property settlement matters so that she can obtain some preliminary advice about how her entitlement for settlement of property is worked out and what she could expect. Next week in this series, we will look at some family law issues that Sally will need to consider.

At LGM Family Law, we offer a free phone consultation for up to 15 minutes when we can give Sally some general advice.

It is likely though that Sally will need more detailed advice than can be given over that time so we would recommend that Sally book a longer initial consultation with us when we will generally be able to give Sally an indication of her range of likely entitlement for property settlement based upon the information Sally gives us during the consultation. We can also work out a plan for Sally at that meeting as to how she can go about achieving that property settlement. That longer consultation is for up to 1.25 hours and is provided at a discounted fixed rate from our usual charge rate.

Each week during this series, we will develop on Sally and Harry’s situation and provide family law advice for each of them in their particular circumstances.  Next week, we will focus on concerns that Harry has around his concern for a family law property settlement.

 

 

 

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