Our Practice Areas

At Hey Family Law we offer a full suite of family law services, including:

Parenting

Our firm can assist in negotiating parenting arrangements through mediation and formalising a parenting agreement through Consent Orders lodged with the Family Court or via a Parenting Plan.

Where there is no agreement, we can also assist parents in obtaining custody or access, now called lives with and spends time with Orders through the Family Law Courts.

Orders that can be applied for in a parenting matter include:-

• Parental Responsibility – who will make the long-term decisions for the child in the child’s life;
• Parenting Arrangements – where the child will live and the arrangements for whom the child will spend time with;
• Special Occasions – including Christmas, Easter, school holidays, birthdays and Mother’s and Father’s Day and any other significant holiday or event in the child or the parent’s lives;
• Specific Orders – relating to school, religion, medical procedures, travel and passports;
• Recovery and Location Orders – where children have been taken away or withheld by one parent from the other and/or the withholding parent’s whereabouts are unknown.

Property Settlement

We help people through the property settlement negotiations with their former spouse, initially by correspondence with the other party or their lawyer and then through mediation.

The first step is to obtain disclosure and arrange valuations of any assets not agreed in order to determine the asset pool available for division.

Once the asset pool is known, we then explore settlement prospects based on our client’s legal entitlements to a share in the asset pool as a result of their financial and non-financial contributions and any disparity in future needs owing to the care of children, an age disparity or as a result of the earning capacity of each of the parties.

If settlement can be reached without Court intervention, we will assist in drafting or reviewing the settlement terms, documented by either Consent Orders in the Family Court or a Binding Financial Agreement.

In the event the matter is unable to settle, then Court proceedings are commenced, usually in the Federal Circuit Court.

Binding Financial Agreements and Prenuptial Agreements

Our firm has considerable experience in drafting Financial Agreements either dividing parties’ assets after separation or making provisions for how the assets are to be divided in the event of separation.

A Financial Agreement can be entered at several different stages of a relationship, including:-

1. Before a de facto relationship or marriage;
2. During a de facto relationship or marriage; and
3. After separation or divorce.

We offer fixed fees in most Binding Financial Agreement matters, for both the drafting and advice provision or in advising the other party to a Financial Agreement prepared by another firm.

We can also assist parties who have purchased a pro-forma Agreement online or through a third-party company.

Child Support

We negotiate and formalise parenting arrangements between parents, including the amount of periodic (weekly/monthly) child support paid from one parent to the other, school and child-care payment arrangements, extra-curricular activities, medical and private health insurance and any other child related expenses.

We are also able to assist clients in applying for a review of their child support in special circumstances and in appealing decisions made by the Child Support Agency.

Divorce

The process of applying for a Divorce is relatively straight forward and our divorce lawyers gold coast offer fixed fees for the various types of divorce applications, including where a hearing is required in the event there are children born to the marriage or if the divorce is contested.

Domestic Violence

We regularly represent both aggrieved applicants and respondents to domestic violence applications, both within southeast Queensland and in interstate jurisdictions.

Domestic Violence Orders can include:-

1. The standard good behaviour Orders;
2. No contact Orders – where the respondent is prevented from contacting the aggrieved, by phone, text message, social media or any other means, including by having a third-party contact the aggrieved on their behalf;
3. Ouster Orders – where one party is required to vacate a home;
4. Orders preventing a party from coming within a specified distance of a place the aggrieved frequents, including their workplace; and
5. Orders relating to children, including protective measures to prevent children being exposed to domestic violence.

The laws in Queensland regarding what defines domestic violence have been broadened in recent years, so often either party is unaware certain conduct constitutes domestic violence and could result in an Order being made in the Magistrates Court.

Spousal Maintenance

Spousal maintenance, the support required of a spouse after separation is a complex area of law, where a strict forensic-type exercise is undertaken by the Court in relation to the income and expenses of each of the parties, to determine whether one party owes a legal obligation to support the other. We have extensive experience in spousal maintenance, acting for both applicants and respondents to claims for maintenance.

There are often other avenues to applying to the Court for periodic support after separation, especially given there are often delays in having an interim spousal maintenance claim heard by the Courts. We can provide assistance in the negotiation of interim spousal maintenance arrangements.