Homemaker Contributions
In the family law property settlement process, it is necessary to identify contributions made by the parties. The Family Law Act 1975 provides for an assessment of the following contributions of a party towards the relationship:
- Financial contributions: This may include salary produced by the parties, or the financial acquisition, conservation or improvement of any property;
- Contributions other than financial: Similar to the above, this may include works to the conservation or improvement of any property, such as renovation works or maintenance;
- Homemaker contributions: This may include domestic duties undertaken by one of the parties; and
- Whether there was any domestic violence to which one party of the relationship was subjected or exposed to and how this impacted that party’s ability to contribute as outlined above.
What are homemaker contributions?
Homemaker contributions are classified as contributions made by a party to the marriage to de facto relationship to the welfare of the family that benefit the parties and any children of the relationship. One example of this is the traditional example of the wife remaining in the home, caring for the children and fulfilling the domestic duties such as cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing etc whilst the husband works in gainful employment.
In this scenario, should the parties separate, the wife would be greatly disadvantaged as she may have spent a number of years out of the workforce and may have difficulties attempting to find gainful employment. Furthermore, due to the roles that the parties adopted during the relationship, the wife may have significantly less superannuation than the husband.
As such, when the parties are undertaking their property settlement, the Court is required to look at these homemaker contributions of the wife and determine whether on the basis of the parties current and future circumstances (such as her ability to obtain future gainful employment and her future care obligations for the children) whether she should be entitled to an adjustment of the available property pool in her favour. When considering homemaker contributions, the court is not concerned with the quality of the performance of those domestic duties, but rather just the fact they were performed and by whom. What will be significant is whether domestic duties were a full-time role of one of the parties, and whether the parties had help from cleaners, housekeepers, gardeners etc.
In more recent times, it might be the case that both parties to a relationship or marriage work full-time. In those circumstances, the court is likely to find that the contributions as a homemaker were equal unless there is evidence to prove otherwise. Similarly, in those circumstances, the financial contributions may also be considered equal even though one party is earning more than the other.
When it comes to assessing your entitlements in a property settlement, it is clear the court is required to consider all contributions made by the parties and is required to consider non-financial contributions, particularly homemaker contributions. If you have made contributions as a homemaker during your marriage or your relationship, you should contact Armstrong Legal speak to a family law solicitor about your entitlement from the net asset pool.
