The Property (Relationships) Act 1976 (the Act) sets out certain requirements for agreements regarding the division of assets at the end of a relationship, these are;
- The Agreement must be in writing and signed by the parties;
- Each party to the Agreement must receive independent legal advice before signing the Agreement;
- Each parties lawyer must certify that before they signed the Agreement the lawyer explained the effect and implications of the Agreement.
If these requirements are not met then any Agreement entered into will not be legally binding.
An important part of the process that a lawyer needs to go through so that he or she can explain the effect and implications of a proposed agreement is disclosure of the parties assets and liabilities. This process is often referred to as “disclosure”.
Disclosure requires that each party supplies details of all assets and liabilities, whether in their sole name or joint names and evidence as to their value.
Once this information is provided to a lawyer then he or she can assess the value of the relationship property pool and provide advice as to whether the proposed division is an equal division.
