girl friend moving in !

Even you try to collect the rent or share the bills. Once they have a problem and split, both will be going to court to split the assests. Once you with a lawyer. You will be loosing 15,000 minimum and the house will be half hers.

6 months is all she needs to get from him. The better idea is to get a rented house together and put the contract on the both names and same goes with electricity gas and everything.

Ask him to have a separate bank account where he wil never use to pay the bills for rental property. The account will be there for his salary and for his new house payments.

This way he is atleast protected. Hope nothing goes wrong. 3 years is the time when people start moving away.

I have 4 properties in my name and when my GF moved in with me. I never used the same account and always demanded me and her open a joint account and use the bills from there. It worked when we got seperated. I would advise you to get a good solicitor to give you guys something in writing what you should be doing. Not orally, never stands.

Hi,
this comment is probably too late, but I thought I'll put things into the big picture.

1. All assets prior to marriage or de facto relationship are not claimable by the spouse.
2. After 2 years of living together, the relationship is automatically de facto relationship. This means the spouse's entitlements are similar to those of married couples. During separation / divorce process both sides discuss settlement and this could be 50:50 or 100:0 depending on mutual agreement. Where there is disagreement the family court will look into:

a. whether the relationship was in fact de facto relationship or whether the marriage was valid. For a relationship to be called de facto there has to be evidence of sharing your lives to the level of marriage couple. The easiest is financial arrangements. This is where Milly and Yelina's comments fit in. But separate financial arrangement does not necessarily mean you keep your assets. It depends on other things eg. whether the boy bought her an engagement ring, or a present substantial enough to indicate there's more to it than regular friendship.
b. The need of each spouse eg. if the girl needs extra care the court thinks she is entitled to more money will be awarded to her. Example is K Fed and Britney Spears. The court decided Britney should pay more because she earns more.
c. If there's a kid, all bets are off.

I agree that there's a lot of gold diggers out there, but it begs the question: our marriages don't last as long anymore – may be it's because we start it with strong anticipation for divorce? Maybe what we need is entangling ourselves so much that divorce is not an option for either party? We start the relationship already thinking that the other half is a gold digger.

Anyway, hope that helps.
Cattleya

Cattleya…you're a romantic! And I guess that's a good way to be when  you're young and wanting a family one day.

I had a great marriage, but I'm damned if I will share my hard won independance and assets (and debts) with anyone. My dad too,  had a good marriage but has no wish to shack up with anyone new. He has a lady friend who lives two streets away which is perfect for both of them. I don't think either of them want assets mixed up (tho frankly I dont see how anyone could live with my 'grumpy old man'. )

 Tho we arent cynics by experience, we are mature enough to see that the possibility  of divorce is a very common outcome. And as a parent of 4 boys i would be just as concerned as the author of this post. Living together is great when the young couple both start out with nothing. I don't think entwining finance and assets between a couple  to continue an unhappy marriage is the answer.  Tho my boys are still young I tell them to marry their best friend, the person they can laugh out loud
 with.
milly

Cattleya, I wasn't making an assumption that JUST 'girls' or ALL girls are gold diggers. It was just that by chance I happened to have sons.  I AM female after all and a feminist to boot. I just believe in entering relationships with eyes open. And the sex of a partner has nothing to do with it. I admit I would feel it an unequal relationship if I met a middle aged man with nothing and I certainly won't be swept off my feet by a young poor ski instructor with an eye to my lifestyle.

If a son of mine screwed up and ran off with his wife's best friend, I would understand even the mildest, nicest girl wanting to extract revenge and that might include ensuring a long expensive court battle that would see both parties with nothing. I don't think it is ethical  but I could certainly understand it. You can't predict the future or how people will react to changing circumstances.

But you ask 'what would it take to convince  me that a girl was not a gold digger". Trust is the best answer and trust is born out of time. So six months  or two years living with someone  may be long enough or it may not be long enough. Certainly a person should not be entitled to another's estate just because they lived with them. Gees they lived rent free after all. . But as I said above people DO change and no one can be sure how they will react in a new situation.

I don't believe this is . I think it is important to take off the rose coloured glasses occassionally.  The Cinderella stories are no longer be applicable in this day and age and Sitting on the Fence just wants to ensure that that is the case. Naturally if there are children involved there are separate issues to be addressed but frankly I should not have to worry that my estate could be challenged by a partner who contributed nothing when my will stated it should go to my kids.

Hello Sitting on the fence

I recently read about a new contract that you can enter into regarding assets held before you go into a relationship. I believe it only came into existence in the last couple of years and the article said that as long as both parties have been honest about their assets and there are no children involved it would have to be a very special situation before the family law courts would overturn it. Unfortunately I can't find the name of this sort of contract. No it's not a pre nuptial agreement.

Ring your solicitor. She/he should know.

Cheers
Elka

Hello Sitting on the fence

I found the article I remembered reading. It was in the August 2006 copy of API.

The contract is called a Binding Financial Agreement and has been available since 2000 according to the article. It also suggests that young couples starting out, in the absence of a crystal ball,  may find it advisable to include a clause that the agreement be reviewed in a few years time to see if it still reflects their wishes and needs.  

Hope this helps
Elka

That just amazes me Terry. Were their children involved?

I am definitely staying single

 <<lol>>

Sitting on the Fence, you may want to tell your son to reconsider.  Even a prenuptial agreement is not watertight – example is K Fed and Britney whose prenup was said to be VERY watertight. And Britney does have the resources to hire the best lawyers to draft the prenup.

Another option is to put everything, or at least half, under your name and not his.

Last option, which I prefer and practice, appeal to her basic decency as a human being. If I were in your position I'd have a heart to heart talk. My other half and I agreed that when we, touch wood, separate we'll keep our paws off each other's pockets. I agree there is no guarantee, but nothing in life is guaranteed. And in return I have all the simple things that only a loving partner can give and make my life a whole lot brighter.

It is sad that our society has come to this: reluctance to venture into potentially very rewarding relationships because of money. And it works both ways – just as we are reluctant to build a relationship with poorer people, the richer ones are reluctant to date us because of fear of us being a gold digger.  As I said before, that makes us all potential gold diggers.

And most of the time there's no way around it, you have to move in together and face the risk of losing some of your money.  Mind you, it is only a risk not a certainty.

Kind regards,
Cattleya

Seank,

Sorry to say this, your friend is not protected. The lawyers can correct me on this but my understanding is the Court can <take a deep breath> go back to all transfer of assets during the past 3 years <not sure but 3 I think is the minimum, can go back further than 3> and assess whether they were done to obscure ownership, to hide them from the spouse. If the court so decides, it has the power to nullify the transactions and give the spouse her / his rightful share. Especially when there's a kid involved.

It is best to transfer ownership before the relationship officially starts ie. marriage or in the first 2 years of living together. After this point everything is up for grabs.

Best is avoiding divorce at all cost – from the kid and financial perspective. If they have to, it is much much better to settle outside the court. Both partners should look into their hearts and decide what's fair. During a separation there's a lot of animosity and anger between the couples. These negative emotion prevents them from being fair to each other. The husband might be so angry that he denies what's rightfully hers and vice versa.

Also to put it into perspective: Family Law is created to protect the interests of the weaker spouse, not helping the gold diggers, though to our eyes that's what happens most of the time. What's fair in the eyes of the court may not be fair from our perspective because we don't know the full story and we are biased with emotion. The court is there to make us feel safe to enter a relationship, not the other way around.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Cattleya