By Tara Grant - 21 Mar 2022
The Family Law section of the New Zealand Law Society, in
conjunction with Grant Thornton, recently released the New Zealand
Relationship Property Survey of 2021.
Key findings included:
- Covid-19 played a significant part in family law in 2021 and
affected people's reasons for separating and not separating. Fewer
couples cited marital affairs as their reason for separating.
Marital affairs being replaced by stress or family strains.
- Net relationship property assets have significantly increased
in value. The increase in property values that we have seen in
recent years is likely the biggest contributing factor to this
increase.
- Opposing counsel continue to pose challenging issues for family
practitioners. The report finding that other than systemic delay in
the Family Court (which ranked the most challenging) dealing with
unrealistic, aggressive or inexperienced opposing counsel came
second, with non-disclosure of information between parties
third.
- Court hearings and other family matters are prioritised over
relationship property disputes, resulting in fewer cases being
filed and higher rates of settlement outside of the Court
system.
- Over a quarter of relationship property practitioners recorded
difficulties achieving remote signing of section 21
(pre-nuptial/contracting out agreements) and section 21A agreements
(settlement agreements) during Covid-19, Level 3 or 4 lockdowns.
This was presumably due to technical difficulties in a challenging
environment.
- Practitioners are in favour of a regime which would require the
joint appointment of a forensic accountant. Many of the
relationship property practitioners who participated in the survey
indicated greater use of forensic accountants generally and the
increasing use of a joint forensic accountant following the same
approach in the UK and Australia.
The report provides us with useful insights into the highly
personal area of relationship property law. These findings, along
with feedback from our clients, tell us that our pragmatic team of
relationship property specialists, offering a vast depth of
experience, working as advisers, advocates, negotiators and
litigators, are on point.
Our crew are ground breakers in the area of remote signing of
pre-nuptial and settlement agreements and regularly team up with
other specialists, including forensic accountants, if they (and
you) agree that that is what is needed to achieve the best and
right result.
Please get in touch with one of our relationship property
specialists if you need our support.
Contacts
Tara
Grant
Telise
Kelly
Surendra
Bennett