Family Law Disputes - Property, Parenting & Support
Family Law & de Facto Relationships
Recent changes in Family Law are designed to increase the flexibility and degree of control parties have over their own pre-marriage and post- separation arrangements. Outside of formal marriage, de facto couples are relatively free to make whatever arrangements they wish.
For most people, family break-ups - whether in a marriage or in a serious de facto relationship - are times of great turmoil, trauma, anger, fear and vulnerability. There is often a sense of enormous and far reaching transition, where at least one party - and often both - feel deeply confused, distressed and uncertain about what their futures, and the futures of others who depend on them, will bring.
In addition to the central, unravelling relationship, and all that implies, there are crucially important decisions about finances and parenting that must be made.
When these decisions are not made relatively consensually, and especially when the issues themselves become a legal battlefield, the family is at great risk of "double jeopardy".
For whatever reason, their family situation has failed and their former combined home is about to become two separate homes. When battle commences, most of the residual goodwill the parties need to help them negotiate new arrangements quickly evaporates. Meanwhile, money and other financial resources that should be used to help the parties get re-established are diverted into paying legal and expert fees and costs, temporary accommodation expenses etc.
The net result is that tens of thousands of dollars are thrown away on non-productive battles, children are deeply scarred emotionally, careers suffer enormously, and friends and family find themselves between a most uncomfortable rock and a most inhospitable hard place.
Conventional professional advisers (lawyers and accountants) cannot represent both parties at the same time. This is why they find themselves competing against other advisers to "protect their client's interests". They see themselves in the role of champions which, of course, encourages them to be even more competitive.
TSG is appointed by both parties to solve their problem. This allows us to play a completely different, and far more constructive, role. We establish and facilitate a collaborative, problem solving process that encourages both parties to be open about their personal concerns, needs and interests - including issues of financial security and parenting plans. Professional advisers are more than welcome in this process and they can play a very useful role in information gathering and party support, provided they are prepared to get with the game and help with the solutioneering (ie: we love the good ones, but we don't have much patience with obstructive advisers!).
The process can be as rigorous, or as informal, as the parties wish. Its only purpose is to help them make wise decisions about important issues - as quickly, painlessly and as inexpensively as possible.
In the TSG process, legal entitlements are an issue , but they're not the issue. The parties are not forced to subjugate their needs entirely to what the law says they should do, no matter how "generically fair" the law may seem to be. Instead, the focus is on what the parties themselves want done, and how they want to do it. We reason that they know their own situation and needs best - they just need help getting there.
Arbitration - Property disputes
Family property is typically a mixture of large and small financial assets (and liabilities) and items that have more sentimental, than monetary, value.
When separating couples want to be reasonable and responsible about dividing their assets we help them to:
- Identify the assets they need to deal with and provide a process to help them agree the assets they are willing to allocate to each other on a consensual basis and then,
- Run a streamlined arbitration (decision-making) process to rule on the value and/or allocation of what's left. This can include highly contentious issues such as valuations of private businesses etc - which typically become terrifically fraught and expensive once they get into the legal system.
The process takes into account the parties' future financial needs, as required by both the Family Law Act and common sense.
If the parties were in a de facto relationship, the process is even less complicated.
In all cases, the main objective is to ensure that, so far as is possible, the majority of the couple's assets remain with them after the process is complete so they can get re-established as quickly and as painlessly as possible.
Because the process puts respect for the individuals above respect for the process, it is also an excellent way to provide closure with dignity.
Further process information can be found by following the links to: Arbitration.
Mediation
(Comments are basically the same as for Arbitration above - the objective of our process is the same, it's only the technical process that differs).
Family property is typically a mixture of large and small financial assets (and liabilities) and items that have more sentimental, than monetary, value.
When separating couples want to be reasonable and responsible about dividing their assets we help them to:
- Identify the assets they need to deal with and provide a process to help them agree the assets they are willing to allocate to each other on a consensual basis and then,
- Run a streamlined mediation (managed negotiation) process to help the parties negotiate and agree the value and/or allocation of what's left. This can include highly contentious issues such as valuations of private businesses etc - which typically become terrifically fraught and expensive once they get into the legal system.
The process takes into account the parties' future financial needs, as required by both the Family Law Act and common sense.
If the parties were in a de facto relationship, the process is even less complicated.
The main objective is to ensure that, so far as is possible, the majority of the couple's assets remain with them after the process is complete so they can get re-established as quickly and as painlessly as possible.
Because the process puts respect for the individuals above respect for the process, it is also an excellent way to provide closure with dignity.
Further process information can be found by following the links to: Mediation.
