Legal Matters Ep 20: Property Settlement, Contributions & Will Disputes

Queensland’s family law property settlement rules determine far more than who keeps the house — they decide exactly when the asset pool is valued, what counts inside it, and how each partner’s contribution is measured, all questions Andrew Bell unpacks in this episode alongside four live caller disputes covering will standing, a stolen trailer, and a life insurance policy caught in a looming divorce.

Key Topics

• Defining separation — why moving out is no longer required, and how “separation under one roof” affects the property settlement and divorce timeline.
• Time limits recap — 12 months from divorce for married couples, 24 months from separation for de facto couples. See De Facto Relationships in Queensland .
• The property pool — what assets and debts are included, and why superannuation type makes no difference. See Understanding the Family Law Property Pool .
• Valuation timing — why the pool is valued at trial or settlement, not separation, and how this can shift outcomes by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
• Contributions — the three legal categories: direct financial, non-financial, and homemaker/parenting contributions. See Understanding the Family Law Property Pool .
• Family provision claims — who has default standing to challenge a will, including the difference between siblings and stepchildren. See Who Can Challenge a Will in Queensland? .

Listener FAQ Highlighted In This Episode

• Can a sister challenge her living brother’s will just because she disagrees with it? Not by default — siblings must prove dependency or a reasonable expectation of inheriting, which is difficult without evidence of financial support. See Who Can Challenge a Will in Queensland? .
• Who owns a trailer when the registration says one thing and the current holder says another? The last registered owner with a lodged police report is generally treated as the presumptive owner, and QCAT can resolve the dispute for a low application fee. See QCAT and Disputes .
• Does a life insurance policy someone else has been paying for get caught up in their divorce? Yes — if it has a cash or surrender value, it forms part of the property pool regardless of who has funded the premiums, though contribution arguments can affect the final split. See Understanding the Family Law Property Pool .
• Can stepchildren who haven’t been supported for 30 years still contest a will? They have default standing to try, but establishing a reasonable expectation of inheriting becomes very difficult without a supportive relationship on the record. See Who Can Challenge a Will in Queensland? .

Listen to the full discussion above.

Key Takeaways

1. Separation does not require moving out. Couples can be legally separated “under one roof” while still sharing a home.
2. Watch your time limits closely — 12 months from divorce for married couples, 24 months from separation for de facto couples, or you’ll need the court’s permission to proceed.
3. The property pool is valued at trial or settlement, not separation — delays can significantly change what each party receives.
4. Non-financial and parenting contributions carry real weight and are often treated as equalising a working partner’s financial contributions.
5. Siblings generally cannot challenge a will by default — only dependants, parents, children, and those with a reasonable expectation of inheriting have standing.
6. Stepchildren have default standing to contest a will, but must still prove they were not adequately provided for.
7. Register your valuables and keep the paperwork — presumptive ownership disputes are far easier to resolve with a lodged police report and clear registration history.

Next week: the Family Law series continues, moving from contributions into how courts actually divide the property pool between parties.

Annotated Transcript

Announcer: 4CRB now presents Legal Matters, proudly brought to you by Bell and Senior Lawyers. Call them today for all your legal needs on 07 5532 8777. This program provides general legal information only. It’s not personal legal advice. Everyone’s situation is different, so please seek independent advice for your own circumstances.

[Colin]: Well, welcome to the microphone. Welcome to the studio, Andrew Bell from Bell and Senior Lawyers.

[Andrew]: Great to be back, Colin.

[Colin]: It is. Well, we’ve been discussing over the past couple of weeks certain topics. We moved into family law and really only just started family law last week, so we thought we’d continue that conversation on this morning. But first and foremost, this is your radio show, it is your opportunity to get a bit of free legal advice live on air right here, right now. 07 5520 8888 is the number.

[Andrew]: Oh, it was good. Some unpredictable weather, some interesting clients, and school holidays. I have five girls at home, so they’re fun to be around, but they’re very, very busy.

Segment — What Is Separation in Law?

Topic: Defining separation and property settlement time limits Legislation: Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) s 4AA, s 44

[Colin]: Alright, moving into family law this morning, and we might start with that basic question: What is separation in law?

[Andrew]: Okay, well separation is where one or both parties intend to end the relationship and they act on it. Separation is different to what people think it is, where people have to have moved out of home; that’s no longer the case. You don’t need to move out. You can be separated under one roof — so two people in the same house but no longer acting as a couple. So, if you’re married, you need 12 months of separation before you can apply for divorce. And if you are married, if you want to do a property settlement, which is what we’re talking about today, that must be filed within 12 months of the divorce being final. But it can be applied from any time once you’re separated. And for de facto couples, once you’re separated, because there is no divorce, you’ve got two years from the date of separation. It’s very important though to watch those dates because if you miss them, you’ll need the court’s permission to proceed with any sort of property settlement.

[Colin]: So if you miss them, you mean you exceed those time frames?

[Andrew]: Exactly. If you’ve been separated under one roof for two and a half years and you decide you want to sell houses and split property etc., it’s much more difficult to do than doing it within the two-year frame if you’re a de facto, or one year after the divorce.

📎 See also: De Facto Relationships in Queensland

Segment — What Goes Into the Property Pool?

Topic: Assets, debts, and valuation timing Legislation: Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) Pt VIII, Pt VIIIAB

[Colin]: Alright, moving on to the property pool. What goes in it?

[Andrew]: Okay, so for those not familiar with property separations, what we are separating is what’s called the property pool. So the property pool is everything owned by both parties to the relationship. So real estate, bank accounts… one we had a question about last week: superannuation doesn’t matter if it’s in a self-managed super or a normal super fund. Shares, businesses, vehicles, cryptocurrency, interests in trusts, but also liabilities, debts, personal loans, credit card debt gets taken off the property pool. So, the process for de facto and married couples is essentially identical. And one important point is the pool is not valued at the time of separation, like a lot of people think it is; it’s at the date of the trial or at the date of settlement. And that gap can make a big difference where the property market going up or down could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Colin]: Yeah, okay. And you can also now see some of the issues that we hear about out there in the pub testing arenas. So I suppose, as you say, that one clarification — it’s not valued at the time of separation, it’s valued at the time that you go to court and have it mediated or worked out — means that if someone wants to do the wrong thing, they can spend a lot of money in the meantime.

[Andrew]: Absolutely. They can siphon it out, and there used to be things called add-backs, where people removing money out of the pool would be counted against them, but the law changed last year on that and it’s harder to get add-backs in. The court has lots of cases and they just want to separate things very quickly and easily. So, what is the date of the property at the time? Who contributed? What are the future needs? And then adjust accordingly.

[Colin]: In between…

[Andrew]: In between, that goes into the property pool.

📎 See also: Understanding the Family Law Property Pool

Caller 1 — Ann | Sibling Standing to Challenge a Will

Legislation: Succession Act 1981 (Qld) Pt 4 (Family Provision)

[Colin]: And we have Ann on the phone for you right now, Andrew. So very good morning to Ann. Ann, ask your question of Andrew.

[Ann]: Yeah, Andrew, um, if you’ve got a sibling who has no spouse, no children, but a number of siblings, and one sibling is not happy with what his will is. Can that sibling challenge the will? Or do they not have standing?

[Andrew]: Okay, well when you say which will, who has died? Whose will are we talking about?

[Ann]: Not dead yet, but… it’s a brother’s will, and there are three sisters and one sister is not happy how he wrote his will years ago, and just wanting to know whether they would have standing because they are siblings.

[Andrew]: Okay, so in Queensland, for challenging the validity of a will in terms of what we would call a family provision claim, typically the people who default have standing are the people who lived with the deceased, also their parents and their children. Siblings by default don’t exist in that framework. However, there’s another test that says if they can reasonably expect to inherit, they can also claim. So if there have been, I don’t know, if they’re relying on it, if their brother has been supporting them, if there’s a number of other factors the court would take into account about why that person should be looked after by the brother, then they may have standing. But by default, they wouldn’t have standing to sue.

[Ann]: Parents are dead. Each sibling gets a share of his will. He’s in supported living, so he’s not supported any of us during his life.

[Andrew]: Well, I wouldn’t think on the face of things that they would have any standing to challenge. So under the rules of intestacy, if he didn’t have a will, then it would be split up amongst the remaining siblings if there’s no parents or children. However, they don’t necessarily have a default right, so they would have to establish that in the court before they could make any challenges. And if he’s never supported them, I think that it would be very difficult for them to establish why they should inherit or why they should be unhappy with what they’ve been given.

📎 See also: Who Can Challenge a Will in Queensland?

Caller 2 — Irene | Stolen Trailer Ownership Dispute

Legislation: Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal Act 2009 (Qld)

[Colin]: We might move now on to, I believe it is Irene. Irene, are you there? Can you ask your question of Andrew?

[Irene]: I’m here. Um, look, this is probably a bit off base, but last year I had a trailer stolen from my son’s house. Didn’t hear anything until May this year, and my son was driving past and spotted the trailer. So I rang the police and everything, but now the people that had the trailer are saying that it’s their trailer. So I’m, the trailer’s been — it’s in the holding yard at the moment, but I’ve been to the police on a number of occasions but still nothing.

[Andrew]: Okay, who is it registered to?

[Irene]: Me.

[Andrew]: Um, and what have the police said when you’ve asked if they can release it to you?

[Irene]: Um, well, these people that have got the trailer, well, that say it’s their trailer now, they put different plates on it, not mine. They’ve taken my plates off and put different plates on, but the plates that are on there now aren’t registered. So these people that are saying it’s their trailer now, they want to take it to Civil Court. But what I’m thinking — like I’ve got all the paperwork and everything when I purchased it, but they couldn’t find a serial number on it.

[Andrew]: Okay, so I understand the problem that you’ve got, but I mean this is what we have courts to solve disputes like this. If you did go to QCAT, the only cost that you’d be facing would be whoever applies would have an application fee, and they could definitively determine who owns the trailer or who should be compensated. However, if you were the last registered owner with the serial number on the trailer, it would be presumptive that it was yours. Did you lodge a police report at the time that it went missing?

[Irene]: Yes, I lodged a police report, but I didn’t hear anything until…

[Andrew]: Well I’m very surprised that the police won’t release it to you to let you register it if you lodged a police report that said it was stolen and it was registered at the time. So I’d be very interested in getting something in writing from police about why they’re refusing to release it to you.

[Irene]: Well apparently, when they found it, they couldn’t find — like I’ve got all the paperwork and everything when I purchased it, but they couldn’t find a serial number on it.

[Andrew]: Okay, well that’s a complication because if there’s no serial number, how do you prove that it is yours?

[Irene]: Oh well I’ve got photos and everything. I can give it detail to detail what’s on the trailer.

[Andrew]: Well I think your best bet is going to be ask police in writing what’s going on. Ask them, if they refuse to release it to you, ask them not to release it pending a claim, and then I would be taking it to QCAT or the Magistrates Court and getting them to decide who owns it based on the evidence that you can provide.

[Colin]: And I think, Irene, if you’ve proven that you’ve registered a trailer in the past, the compliance plate has been removed, they can’t show that they have registered it in the past. I think you might very well find that they’ll rule in favor of you.

📎 See also: QCAT and Disputes

Segment — What Counts as a Contribution?

Topic: Financial, non-financial and homemaker contributions Legislation: Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) s 79, s 90SM

[Colin]: Moving on on our family law discussion: What counts as a contribution?

[Andrew]: Okay, so the reason why we’re talking about contributions — before we talked about the asset pool, what do people actually own — contributions is how did what got into that asset pool get into the asset pool. And so the court has come up over time with three different categories of contributions. One is direct financial contributions, which is very simple. Someone directly puts money into the bank account or buys one of the assets with cash that they’ve got through gifts, inheritances, or working. Then there’s non-financial contributions, and this is what a lot of family-type matters come down to is, if you renovated the family home with your own labor and it’s increased the value, if you’ve managed a household with children and not worked, if you’ve looked after or cared for elderly parents or children… the court takes a global view over the relationship and then looks at what those non-financial and parenting contributions are. And then after that, the role in a property settlement, a court will look at the global view and look at a percentage of who’s actually contributed. Now, we often get a 20-year marriage that’s broken down with children, and typically the male has worked and the female may have worked or looked after the children for some or all of that time, and often the parenting contributions are seen to equal out the financial contributions from working. So, that’s often then used as the basis for a property division, which we will cover later.

📎 See also: Understanding the Family Law Property Pool

Caller 3 — James | Life Insurance Policy in a Looming Divorce

Legislation: Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) s 79

[Colin]: Very good morning to James. James, ask your question of Andrew.

[James]: Andrew, I paid for an insurance policy for my son as a child. He’s now a middle-aged adult… I’ve been paying for 20 or 30 years or more than that on this insurance policy, and I’ve been keeping it up to date. His marriage looks like it’s going to go to pieces, and I’m wondering what happens to this insurance policy, his insurance policy, even though I’ve paid all the money, if there’s a divorce.

[Andrew]: Um, if there’s a divorce and it’s a financial asset that could potentially be sold or cashed in and it has an actual monetary value, then it would typically get valued and be part of the property pool, and a division would be made taking that into account. However, looking at the contributions and who contributed to it and why it was contributed is something that you would be arguing about why it’s got nothing to do with the wife.

[James]: Could he do a binding death nomination to his daughter rather than his wife?

[Andrew]: Um, if it’s superannuation he definitely could… but this is a life insurance policy — he can name whoever would be the recipient on a life insurance policy. He can change that at any time. It doesn’t have to be a wife, it could be you.

[James]: Ah, there you go.

[Andrew]: Well, the beneficiary normally doesn’t have standing. It’s normally the person who owns it who would have the standing if they want to cash out the insurance policy. But yes, he could change who’s nominated to receive, in the event of his death under the insurance policy, at any time.

📎 See also: Understanding the Family Law Property Pool

Caller 4 — Janet | Stepchildren Contesting a 90-Year-Old’s Will

Legislation: Succession Act 1981 (Qld) Pt 4 (Family Provision)

[Colin]: Very good morning to Janet. Janet, ask your question of Andrew.

[Janet]: I’m calling on behalf of my auntie. She is nearly 90 and I am her carer. I have been her carer for over seven years, close to seven years now. Now, her situation is she has been married, her husband died in 1988, and her husband did have two adult children at the time that they married. What’s her situation if she passes, are they able to contest the will?

[Andrew]: Are you saying they’re not in the will at all or they’re not happy…

[Janet]: They’re not, her husband’s adult children are not in the will.

[Andrew]: But they weren’t her children? Okay, so stepchildren normally have standing to sue in a family provision claim if they could reasonably expect to inherit under the will. However, again, you’d look at then at the relationship that they’ve had since 1988. Has she been supporting them? Would they reasonably expect to inherit? So while they may be able to challenge the will, they would then have to establish in court why that they weren’t adequately provided for and why they reasonably should have inherited. So just because on paper they’re their children, if she’s not been supporting them for the best part of 30 years, I can’t see why they’d have a reasonable expectation that they’d be taken care of. However, if the husband had substantial assets that all went to her, then they may be able to make that claim. So it would really depend on the specifics, and as I said, stepchildren, they typically would have default standing to sue.

[Janet]: And what about her nieces? She has nieces in England that she hasn’t seen for 90 years…

[Andrew]: Okay, well I would also suggest that she should write a letter explaining the decisions she’s made and why she’s made them, because the court will take her views into account if there is any challenge going on.

📎 See also: Who Can Challenge a Will in Queensland?

[Colin]: Well, we’re getting some curly ones this morning from family law to estate planning to criminal law, I suppose.

[Andrew]: That’s great, I love the community ringing in. This is what I enjoy.

Announcer: You’ve been listening to Legal Matters proudly brought to you by our trusted sponsor Bell and Senior Lawyers. Call them today for all your legal needs on 07 5532 8777. A copy of this and past programs and all relevant resources will be available for you to replay or download on bellsenior.com.au and 4crb.com.

Related Episodes

• Episode 19: New E-Bike Laws & Family Law Basics — the launch of this Family Law series and the definition of a de facto relationship
• Episode 4: Blended Families — wills and inheritance in blended and step-family situations
• Episode 3: Wills and Estates — probate, executor duties and challenging a will
• Episode 7: QCAT and Disputes — resolving minor civil disputes including ownership of goods
• Episode 11: Debt Collection and EPOA — recovering money and assets from uncooperative parties

Footnotes