Just last Wednesday the High Court handed down a landmark decision confirming the legal parentage of a sperm donor. Robert Masson donated sperm to his friend Susan Parsons in 2006, leading to the conception of now twelve-year-old “B”. Robert is listed on B’s birth certificate as her parent. B calls Robert “Daddy”.
This year the High Court will hear a landmark case on the legal parentage of a child born via sperm donation.
The Court has a wide discretion about how they deal with inheritances received during a relationship as well as after separation when making property settlement orders. Inheritances are not a protected category of property and will not automatically be treated differently from other assets available for distribution.
When couples separate, it is often a difficult and emotionally draining time for all those involved. One often challenging consideration is determining the future care arrangements that will best meet their children’s needs.
In the 2018 case of Goldman v Goldman, the wife was the primary carer to the parties’ two children aged 13 and 11 years of age respectively at the date of the trial prior to separation, and the children had also lived with the wife since separation.
I recently presented an information session for Law Week 2018 entitled “Do I need a Pre-Nup? Everything you ever wanted to know about Financial Agreements / Pre-Nuptial Agreements”. There was a request for the information provided at the session and so I intend to summarise the information provided along with links to assist.
With the new year upon us, many new enquiries relate to parenting orders and whether these can be changed. Thankfully in the recent case of Searson & Searson [2017] FamCAFC 119 (5 July 2017) the Full Court (Murphy, Kent and Loughnan JJ) reviewed the current case law with respect to this.
The Full Court of the Family Court held in the 2017 decision of Re Kelvin that the Court’s sanction is no longer required for stage two treatment of Gender Dysphoria where the child is capable of giving Informed Consent or those with parental authority authorise the treatment.
Life, financially or otherwise, does not go into a state of animated suspension after separation and pending property settlement – parties’ financial circumstances constantly change and will be different at time of separation and when orders are made.
The short answer is that the new same sex marriage laws will have no significant impact on Australia’s family law system.