Maintenance Orders for Defacto Couples
Provided you meet the abovementioned criteria of a de facto relationship under the Family Law Act, you will be able to apply for maintenance orders. Whether you will ultimately be entitled to financial orders in your favour will depend on the circumstances of your case, as the Courts will consider the financial and non-financial circumstances as a whole.
Maintenance orders are orders that create an obligation by one partner to make a financial contribution to the other (by lump-sum payment or periodic payment). Factors the court is required to consider include:-
- The age and state of health of the parties;
- The income, property and financial resources of the parties;
- The physical or mental capacity for each party to obtain gainful employment
- Whether a party has care of a child of the relationship who is under 18 years of age;
- The commitments of each party to support themselves, a child or another person they are required to maintain;
- The financial circumstances of relating to any subsequent cohabitation a party may have with a new partner;
- The extent to which a partner has contributed to the income, earning capacity, property or financial resources of the other party;
- The duration of the relationship and the extend to which the relationship may have affected the earning capacity of a person seeking maintenance;
Any other fact or circumstances which, in the opinion of the court, is appropriate to consider in the interests of justice.
Naturally, the longer the relationship and greater the degree of financial inter-dependence, the more like it is that the court will make financial orders varying the property holdings of the parties.
Following the 2009 amendments, a de facto partner can also seek a superannuation splitting order, being an order which may give them certain ongoing rights with respect to superannuation assets in the name of their former partner.
Maintenance Orders are not intended as a replacement for child support. Child Support is intended to compensate a party for the day-to-day expenses associated with looking after a child in the care of that party and is handled separately by the Child Support Agency (a Federal Government authority).
