For decades, Courts could consider family violence as a factor in property settlements. A person needed to show that their ability to contribute the relationship (such as doing day-to-day jobs) was severely impacted or that their future income capacity was reduced because of the physical or psychological impacts. They are hard cases to run. They require a lot of evidence, which could retraumatise the victim, although it could empower them by taking control of the narrative. Putting together that evidence can be stressful and expensive. Even for the successful cases, it would usually increase the victim’s share by ‘only’ around 5%. So people need to weight up their priorities before embarking on that journey.

Until recently, these laws were not mentioned in the Family Law Act (Cth). In 2025, the Family Law Act changed and it now states that Courts are required to consider the impact of family violence in property settlements. It is important to keep in mind though that these laws are not designed to punish an offender. A victim must still tie the violence back to their contributions and their current and future circumstances (such as health and income).Once the Courts have started applying the changes to new cases, we will see if or how much the changes impact on the final property settlement outcomes.

#familyviolence #domesticviolence #propertysettlements #divorce #separation #familylawyermelbourne