The decision to separate is rarely made lightly, and what follows often feels overwhelming: questions about the house, the children, superannuation, what to tell your family, how to pay for it all. You don’t have to answer them alone, and you don’t have to answer them all at once.
At Borda Family Lawyers, we help you break it down into manageable steps, starting with the one that matters most right now.
In Australia, a divorce is simply the formal legal end of a marriage. It’s a separate and generally much more straightforward process than the other considerations involved with the breakdown of a marriage, including parenting arrangements and division of finances.
If your circumstances are not complex, then we will usually encourage you to lodge your own application for divorce, as this can help reduce legal costs. If your circumstances are more complex, or if you are unsure about any aspect of the divorce process, we are of course able to assist.
Australia is a ‘no fault’ divorce jurisdiction. This means that in determining an application for divorce, the Court does not consider the reasons for the breakdown of the marriage or the conduct of either party (though conduct may be a relevant factor in parenting or property settlement proceedings.) The only ground for a divorce order to be made, is that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. It is sufficient if even only one of parties to the marriage regards it as having broken down.
You or your partner must regard the marriage as having irretrievably broken down, and consider there is no reasonable likelihood that you will live together again as a married couple.
You and your partner must have been separated for at least 12 months prior to filing an application for divorce. You can be separated and still living in the same home for some or all of that period, but you must be able to demonstrate that you and your partner have not been living as a married couple and have been leading separate lives for that period, and there are additional documents that must be filed to provide evidence of that.
You or your partner must be an Australian citizen or ordinarily resident in Australia.
If there are any children of your marriage under the age of 18, you will need to satisfy the Court that proper arrangements have been made for their care, or that otherwise there are circumstances to justify the divorce being granted even if those arrangements have not been made.
A sole application is where one party applies independently, and a joint application is where both parties to the marriage agree to apply together, submitting a shared application.
You do not need your former partner’s agreement to apply for a divorce, but you do have to make them aware of the application and satisfy the requirements set about above.
Most people who say “I need a divorce lawyer” actually need help with four connected things:
When applying for a divorce in Australia, there are usually two kinds of fees incurred:
The current filing fee for lodging an Application for Divorce is $1,125. This can be reduced if you meet certain conditions.
e.g. the costs of your lawyer in completing or reviewing the application, or the costs of a process server in serving a copy of the application on your former partner.
We offer competitive fixed fee pricing for divorces:
If you are lodging a sole application for divorce.
If you are lodging a joint application for divorce.
Please note that this does not include the filing fee payable to the Court, and there may be additional third-party expenses if your application needs to be served on your former partner.
Tell us what's happening, ask any question, no obligation
We'll tell you what the next step costs before you take it
Mark Borda, Accredited Specialist, works with you directly
Court is sometimes necessary, but rarely the best first step
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