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Want To Overturn Certain Details About Your Partner's Divorce Application? Here's How To Do It

1 December 2015

Renee Bates

There are a lot of important details that need to be attached to any divorce application filed with a family court. These details include property division, child custody, alimony payments, and monetary awards, among other details. If you have been served with an Application for Divorce and do not agree with any of the details indicated by your partner, you can contest by filing a Response to Divorce application. Read on to learn more.

Filing a Response to Divorce

In the Response to Divorce, you will be required to state what details within the divorce application you would like to contest. You will then be required to explain your response to those details. For clarity purposes, you will be required to attach any proof you may have to support your contest.

What can you contest in a Response to Divorce?

You may contest any detail(s) that you are not comfortable with in the Application for Divorce forms. This includes pertinent details such as:

1. Dates of certain events
2. Names of either you, your partner, or the children
3. Details pertaining division of property or wealth owned
4. Details about child custody arrangements
5. Details about the separation
6. Other facts about the divorce application
7. The divorce application itself

Note that the Australian Family Law Act has a no-fault principal when it comes to divorce. This means that if you are seeking to oppose the application, contesting the reasons for the application may not hold much weight in court.

Also note that you can only contest the divorce if divorce pre-requisites have not been met fully.

When can you file a Response to Divorce?

This application has to be made within 28 days of being served with the Application for Divorce papers; 42 days if you have been served while overseas.

How do you file the application?

You can file the Response to divorce in any of two ways:

1. One you can choose to file the application by yourself. You can do this electronically via the courts portal system.
2. Two, you can have your family lawyer file the application for you at the registry office.

What next after filing?

After filing, all you have to do is wait for your application to be reviewed. The judge will look at your submission and determine the contest(s) sought. You do not have to attend the hearing in person unless your application was opposing the divorce itself as well.

With crucial processes hanging in the balance at the divorce hearing, do not let incorrect details go unchecked, file a Response to Divorce and let your voice be heard.

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