Property defacto

[JoSam]

Hi,
I’ve been separated 5 years, have one child. I bought house 6 yrs before I met my ex, house in my name and so is mortgage. I also refinanced 2 yrs ago. He has never paid anything to house which I have evidence of. He is saying otherwise.
We have court date in a few wks, he wants half of my assets incl. house, car and my super which is 3 x more than his. I have child 100% which he used to see 1day p.w before police put FV order in place.
I’m worried we will be left homeless, as I’m on low income, he has applied for orders on basis of hardship.
I’ve come to the realisation he may be entitled to something, would would be a reasonable spilt?
I appreciate any opinion.

 

[GlassHalfFull]

Yeah, even if he never directly contributed to the house, if you were living de facto, you will likely have been sharing costs which indirectly gave you the ability to save more, so there is usually an implication that assets are to some extent shared, or at least there is a partial claim to assets that have risen in value in the time you were together.

Hard to say what a reasonable split would be though. If you have the child 100% of the time and the house was yours prior to the relationship and have been separated 5 years, it's hard to say that he would be entitled to anything like half of your assets. Having the sole care of the child of your relationship carries a lot of weight (I've heard that 60-65% is often assigned to the primary carer because of the extra needs placed on them).

Unless I've missed it, you haven't actually said how long you were actually together for though which will play a role. If you were together 10 years, he might be entitled to say 35% of the assets for example. If you were together just one year, he might be entitled to just 10 or 20%. These are just numbers I'm guessing at. I'm far from an expert in these things. But they might be ballpark accurate. You're really better off getting proper legal advice when it comes to the split of major assets like that. Even just a 10% difference in asset split might pay for the lawyer's fees many times over.

 

[JoSam]

Thanks for your response, I really appreciate it.

We were defacto for 20 months, together for 3 yrs, although he says defacto for nearly 5 years which is incorrect.

 

[GlassHalfFull]

Are you both self represented? I guess you will just need to get all your facts and documents together that you can use to help justify your timeline. I don't have any experience with going to court for property settlement (only parenting matters), so I don't know what the usual process is, but is this your first hearing or a final hearing? Are you expecting everything to be dealt with on the spot?

Being defacto for just 20 months, I can't really see him getting much but that's just a gut feeling. Often when lawyers are involved, they advise their clients sensibly and can usually get a settlement out of court...

I have to say though, I wonder if your court date will go ahead... I think the courts will be swamped with parenting matters. Not to say financial settlements won't be dealt with at all, but I believe non urgent matters may be postponed.

 

[JoSam]

My lawyer says it will go ahead by phone.

Parental matter is also being heard at the same time, which I didn’t mention. He wants more access, which is fair enough, at least he wants to see our child. Child has post traumatic stress disorder from witnessing FV, he was charged with physically assaulting me and found guilty and hasn’t seen the child since, nearly 18 months ago.

I was expecting the parental side just not the property side as legal advice I previously got said he couldn’t touch the house.

I just don’t want to sell, the house is my child’s emotional and physical security.

 

[JoSam]

I forgot to add, it’s the 1st hearing and we both have lawyers. I’m hoping the property side may get thrown out but I may be dreaming.