Reasons Why The Family Court Could You Award You Costs Following A Divorce
If you are married or in a de facto relationship, there will be many experts and professionals that you and your spouse and partner will have sought advice from regarding your finances. These could have included your bank manager, an accountant, a tax advisor, a mortgage adviser, and an investments expert, to name but a few, but the day could come when your finances need the help of a family lawyer.
Now a divorce lawyer may not be the first professional that you think of when discussing finances, however, if the time comes when unfortunately your relationship breaks down and you end up filing for divorce, your family lawyer could be in a position to help your own personal financial position.
We are not talking about them giving investment or tax advice, although they may well recommend someone who can. Instead, we mean them using their expertise and knowledge of family law to ensure that when the specifics of your divorce are being considered by the Family Court, that you are awarded costs, including those of employing that very same family lawyer.
This is where we hit the first difficulty in having costs awarded to you. Specifically, the principle within Australian divorce law as laid out in the Family Law Act of 1975, where divorces are regarded as ‘no fault’. In other words, an irretrievable breakdown is usually the term used to grant a divorce, regardless of what other circumstances might have existed within the marriage or partnership.