Family violence victims now have greater protections in Family Law property proceedings under changes to the Family Law Act. RMB Family Law Senior Associate Danielle Cartwright explains:
Changes to the Family Law Act which came into effect in June 2025 have now incorporated the consideration of family violence on contributions in property proceedings.
For many years the Family Law system poorly recognised the impact family violence had on individuals and their ability to contribute to property in a relationship.
There were many cases that dealt with the detrimental effect that family violence can have on an individual from a parenting perspective and what effect violence within the family has on children and parents.
There were fewer cases that dealt with how an individual contributes to the property pool in the marriage when they are experiencing family violence, and how that contribution may be much harder compared to someone who doesn’t experience violence in their marriage.
However, the key case of Kennon & Kennon led to what is known as a Kennon Argument in Family Law – where a party to a marriage or de facto relationship argues that that party’s (the victim’s) contributions were significantly more difficult to make because of violent conduct by the other party (the perpetrator) to the relationship.
Changes to the Family Law Act now make reference to whether someone was impacted by family violence in taking into consideration the contributions someone has made to the property pool.
What this means for our clients is that if you have experienced family violence the Court will consider what impact this has had on you and how much harder your contribution to the property pool may have been because of violence during the relationship and after separation.
This will form part of a new list of circumstances to be taken into consideration before making orders, previously referred to as s75(2) or s90SF (3) factors, after considering the assessment of contributions to the property pool that are usually considered such as wages, expenses, initial assets, parenting contributions, homemaker contributions, inheritances, lump sum payments, gifts from family etc.
While it does not automatically mean the existence of any family violence in the relationship will make a significant change to future distribution of property, it does mean that all parties to property proceedings will need to consider how family violence has affected individuals during the relationship.
