Overall three in five (60%) Australian adults are married or partnered, followed by just over a quarter (27%) who have never been married and 8% who are divorced. Now that 8% seems like a low number, but that actually equated to 49,510 granted divorces in 2020.

Surprisingly that number is a decrease since 2000 which saw an average of 2.6 divorces per 1000 people, whereas in 2020 it was down to 1.9 per 1000. Now if you are one of those statistics you may be struggling your way through a messy break up, you may have children involved that are finding the process a little overwhelming or you may just be counting down the days to receiving that final letter that officiates the end of your marriage. There are many issues that come with getting divorces but what we all try to avoid is an issue turning into trouble that could slow down the already painful progression.

Some issues that will need to be decided through family law include:

• Dividing up the assets, house rights-

As the most common age to get divorced in Australia is the mid forties range, often that means there are assets involved that have been bought together like houses and cars. This is one of the biggest and potentially messiest parts of a divorce, dividing this up and deciding who gets what can be difficult, and of course has the potential to be troublesome if both parties are not in agreement.

“It’s important to understand that a property settlement and a divorce are two different things.  Your property settlement should be done as soon as possible after the separation.  You don’t need to wait for the divorce to come through, “ said Jennifer Hetherington, Divorce Lawyer Brisbane

• Custody of children-

An equally big part of divorce is the issue of child custody. In most cases it is a fair deal of joint custody, and the small print is who has the children on which days, but there can be complications if either party opts for full custody, or if the child is old enough to have an input and suggests they do not want to stay with one of the parents.

• Joint bank accounts

Things are always difficult when there is money involved and although joint bank accounts are becoming something of the past, they do still exist and often this can be a real issue in terms of splitting the contents out into separate accounts and rearranging bills into the right name.

For all of the above it is important to keep communications and agreements done with lawyer’s present. This will help to prevent any trouble as there is witness to the arrangements on both sides. It is also harder to argue with your ex-partner when outsiders are present, as you’re less likely to get into personal disagreements.

At the end of the day sometimes divorce is for the best, in Australia for a divorce to be granted you have to have been separated for at least 12 months which means you have probably already tried to work things out and made peace with a separation. But making sure all the issues around the legal side of things don’t turn into trouble will save so much stress and make the whole process much quicker to complete.