After you separate at some stage it will be necessary to divide your property through a Property Settlement includes assets, liabilities and financial resources. 

Financial Resources include Superannuation and pension interests.  
The definition of ;property is very wide.  It will include almost anything of value.
Property Settlement includes assets and financial resources such as (amongst other things)

  • jointly owned assets;

  • property owned in the name of one party only;

  • superannuation;

  • business interests;

  • an interest in a company;

  • family trusts as well as other Trust interests;

  • Funds or Interests over which a party has influence or control;

  • Prospective entitlements (in some cases);

  • assets owned prior to the commencement of the relationship;

  • assets acquired the relationship;

  • assets acquired after Separation.

As well as dividing the assets and financial resources, property settlement also involves the division of any liabilities. Liabilities will include debts, loans, tax and stamp duty obligations.  All liabilities are considered whether they are in joint names or whether they are in the name of one spouse only.  

Contrary to popular belief, in Australian law there no presumption or starting point that property should be divided between the parties on an equal (50% / 50%) basis.  There is not any rule of thumb as to how Courts will divide the property between the parties.  

The Court will look at the particular facts of each case on its own merits and then make an Order they consider appropriate for the circumstances of that case.  
An Order made by a Court is usually framed in terms of the percentage of the total property pool that each party will receive.

You may have heard of a friend's property settlement being 60/40, 60% to the wife and 40% to the husband.  This means if their net property pool (total assets & financial resources - total liabilities) was $800,000, then the wife would have received 60% of that being $480,000 and the husband would have received 40% being $320,000. The  Court will usually specify which assets each party will retain, whether any assets must be sold so that the proceeds can be divided and whether a party needs to pay a cash adjustment  amo