Financial Disclosure Statement | s.71B Family Law Act

In Australian practice, a financial disclosure statement is a party's written assets and liabilities schedule, prepared at a stated valuation date and backed by documents proving each figure. It lists every parcel of land, vehicle, bank and offset account, share portfolio, company or trust interest, superannuation interest, loan, credit card and tax debt, together with income and regular expenses. Practitioners exchange it before mediation and alongside letters proposing settlement terms. It is not the court's prescribed Financial Statement, which must be sworn and filed once proceedings start in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. A well kept schedule simply makes that later form a transcription exercise.

The schedule also captures things that are not strictly property. Interests in a discretionary trust, an expected redundancy payment or an unvested employee share plan may sit outside the divisible pool, yet the court weighs them as financial resources when assessing each party's current and future circumstances. A schedule limited to legal title misses half the picture. It also differs from the disclosure annexure to a financial agreement, which is a fixed snapshot attached to a signed contract. This statement is a working document, updated as negotiations move and values change.

The Family Law Amendment Act 2024 (Cth) moved the duty of disclosure out of the court rules on 10 June 2025 and into the Act itself: section 71B governs parties to a marriage and section 90RI governs de facto parties in financial or property proceedings. The duty is owed both to the court and to the other party, and it continues until the case ends. The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 carry the detail, with rule 6.01 setting out the general duty and rule 6.06 listing what must be produced in financial cases, including recent tax returns and notices of assessment, superannuation information, business activity statements and accounts for any company, trust or partnership a party controls. Schedule 1 to the Rules adds pre-action procedures that expect this exchange before anyone files, which is exactly where a financial disclosure statement does its work.

Superannuation has its own regime. Under Part VIIIB, a superannuation interest is treated as property for a section 79 or section 90SM adjustment, and the Family Law (Superannuation) Regulations 2001 prescribe how defined benefit interests are valued. Once an application is made, the Federal Circuit and Family Court guidance on filing a Financial Statement in property proceedings confirms that a fresh statement is required whenever circumstances change.

The sanctions are real. Orders obtained through suppression of evidence can be set aside under section 79A for married parties and section 90SN for de facto parties, and a binding financial agreement under Part VIIIA is exposed under section 90K(1)(a), mirrored by section 90UM for de facto agreements, both of which treat non-disclosure of a material matter as fraud. Since Weir and Weir (1993) FLC 92-338, courts have drawn adverse inferences against the party who withholds information, often valuing hidden assets at the higher end of the evidence.

The most common trigger is preparing for mediation or Family Dispute Resolution, since mediators rarely run a property session until both schedules are on the table. Next comes the informal settlement. A couple who agree at the kitchen table still need to formalise it, usually through a consent orders application pack for property and parenting terms, and the registrar assessing whether the division is just and equitable expects the pool to be properly identified. Financial agreements create a third occasion. Each party receives independent legal advice before signing, that advice is only as good as the disclosure behind it, and solicitors on both sides therefore ask for a signed financial disclosure statement first.

Two edge cases deserve attention. Couples separated under one roof often still share accounts, so the schedule must distinguish contributions made after separation from those made before. The other is the party who never handled the family finances. That person can still complete the template, listing every asset they know or suspect exists, marking unknown values as such and identifying the documents the other side holds. A schedule built this way becomes the basis of a formal disclosure request rather than a blank page.

Everything starts with the valuation date. The court assesses the pool at the date of hearing, so the schedule records when each figure was taken and whether it comes from a formal valuation, an agent's appraisal or your own estimate. Real property follows, parcel by parcel, with title particulars, ownership share, current value and every loan secured against it. Land held through a trust or company is cross-referenced to the entity section so nothing is counted twice.

Family businesses get their own treatment, because structure drives value. The template covers sole traders, partnerships, companies and trusts, and for a family company it prompts you to attach the constitution and any shareholders agreement for a Pty Ltd company, since transfer restrictions and buy-out formulas directly affect what a shareholding is worth. Superannuation is listed fund by fund with member number, account type and latest balance, while self-managed funds and defined benefit interests are flagged for separate valuation.

On the other side of the ledger, debts are split twice: joint or sole, then secured or unsecured. Personal guarantees given for a business or a relative are recorded as contingent liabilities, as they are often forgotten until a lender calls on them. The schedule closes with income from every source, financial resources such as a pending inheritance, an index of supporting documents and a continuing disclosure acknowledgment that runs until final orders or agreement.

Family property law is federal, so the Family Law Act 1975 governs married couples everywhere and most de facto couples who separated after their state referred power to the Commonwealth, generally from 1 March 2009 and from 1 July 2010 in South Australia. What varies is the referral history and state revenue law, both of which affect how the schedule is prepared.

The major exception is Western Australia, which never referred its de facto property powers. De facto couples there proceed under Part 5A of the Family Court Act 1997 (WA) in the Family Court of Western Australia, under the Family Court Rules 2021 (WA) and the state's prescribed forms. Disclosure obligations are substantially similar, and since 1 July 2022 WA de facto partners can also split superannuation. Married couples in WA remain under the federal Act, heard by the same court exercising federal jurisdiction. A schedule for a WA de facto matter should therefore cite the state legislation rather than section 90RI.

Separating couples in New South Wales face a practical revenue question. Land transfers made under family law orders or a financial agreement can qualify for a duty exemption under the Duties Act 1997 (NSW), so the schedule should identify which property will change hands and in whose favour. De facto separations before 1 March 2009 remain under the Property (Relationships) Act 1984 (NSW) unless the parties opted into the federal regime.

Victoria follows a similar pattern, with relief for qualifying relationship breakdown transfers under the Duties Act 2000 (Vic). Valuation is the recurring trap there, because council rates notices often trail the market by a wide margin and are a poor basis for negotiation.

Further north, Queensland separations before 1 March 2009 fall under the de facto provisions of the Property Law Act 1974 (Qld). Duty relief sits in the Duties Act 2001 (Qld), and rural or primary production land usually needs a specialist valuer rather than a residential agent's appraisal.

You start by confirming the relationship type and the state or territory where you live, because those answers decide whether the schedule cites the federal Act or the WA legislation. The form then asks for the date of separation and your valuation date, which every later entry inherits unless you change it for a particular asset. From there, the questionnaire moves through each category in the order the court uses: real property, bank accounts, investments, vehicles and valuable personal property, business and entity interests, superannuation, then liabilities. For each item you indicate whether it is held solely, jointly or through an entity, and the template places it in the right column.

Where you do not know a value, you mark it as unknown rather than guessing, and the schedule shows which documents are still needed from the other party. Income and expenses come next. The last step is the document index, where you list the statements, tax returns and valuations behind each entry. After reviewing the summary, you download the schedule ready to sign, attach to correspondence or hand to your solicitor.

The error practitioners see most is leaving out assets held in someone else's name. A share of a family trust, a company that pays your living costs or a car registered to a parent but driven daily by you all belong on the schedule, because the court looks at control and benefit rather than paper title. Close behind is money received from parents. An informal transfer may later be argued as a gift or as a loan, and that one characterisation can move the pool significantly. If it was genuinely a loan, a signed private family loan agreement made at the time of the advance is far stronger evidence than a statement prepared after separation.

Superannuation is the third trap. An old annual statement is not a current value, and a defined benefit balance is rarely its true value; the Superannuation Information Request form lets you obtain the figure the court will actually use. Fourth comes the disappearing account, because emptying an account shortly before separation does not remove it from disclosure and courts routinely add back dissipated funds. Disclose every account that existed in the twelve months before separation, even if its balance is now nil. The last is treating disclosure as a one-off event. A pay rise, a bonus, an inheritance or a sale must be reported promptly, and a settlement built on stale figures is vulnerable to being reopened.