Thursday 11 September 2014

Interesting research on property divisions by agreement

Last month some research was released by the Australian Institute of Family Studies into just how parties finalise their property settlements - and it looks as though the stereotype that couples fight endlessly over property settlements is not borne out by the data.

The Institute conducted a study involving 9000 separated people from around Australia and found:

The average value of assets being divided was about $261,000.
  • 1 in 4 of the couples had no assets to divide
  • 1 in 3 had $40,000 or less in assets

Around half of the couples had finalised their property division within a year of separation.
  • 4 in 10 of the couples with assets of $500,000 or more took on average two years to finalise their property settlement
  • 1 in 3 of the couples with assets of less than $40,000 resolved their property division at the time of separation

According to the co-author of the research, Dr Rae Kaspiew, the majority of couples resolved their property settlement without using the Courts.

Dr Lixia Qu, the co-author of the research, said that about 60% of the couples thought the property settlement was fair. Fairness tended to relate to perceptions about the importance and value given to roles (financial and non-financial) undertaken during the relationship.

Both men and women underestimated their own share of the property division - women reported they received about 50% of the assets while men said they got about 37%.


The most common reason given be respondents for accepting a settlement was wanting to move on. About 33% of those who believed that they had received an unfair settlement saying they agreed to it in order to “get things over with”.

No comments:

Post a Comment