Dallal & Maroun [2023] FedCFamC2F 1165

Dallal & Maroun [2023] FedCFamC2F 1165 - Case Study

Background Details

• Court: Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Division 2), Judge W J Neville, 8 September 2023
• Marriage:
  • Duration: Married in 2011, separated in 2019 (8 years).
  • Ages: Both parties were in their early 30s.

Children

• Children from Marriage: Four children, aged 10, almost 8, almost 7 and 5 at the time of the hearing.
• Residential Arrangements: The children live full time with the mother in crisis accommodation in country New South Wales. Final parenting orders had been made by consent in 2022.

Initial Financial Positions

• Husband:

  • His evidence was vague and unclear about his financial position.

• Wife:

  • There was late evidence of loans from her parents; the amounts were contested.

Contributions During the Relationship

• Financial Contributions:

  • The husband provided the financial support for the family, from his work as a tradesman or through his family's help, and later from Centrelink. His evidence of loans from his family relied on vaguely worded statutory declarations and lacked supporting documents.
  • The wife said the husband controlled all the family's finances, including her Centrelink payments, and the court considered this might reasonably be seen as significant financial control.

• Non-Financial Contributions:

  • The wife was the stay-at-home parent who cared for the children and the home.

Post-Separation Contributions and Actions

• Financial Contributions:

  • The husband stopped paying the mortgage on the home in Town D, and the bank repossessed it. He gave the mother and children little or no financial support.

• Non-Financial Contributions:

  • The mother continued as the full-time carer of the children.

• Asset Dissipation:

  • The court found the husband's failure to disclose his finances so serious that, on one view, the parties' poor financial position was due to his apparent dissipation of assets.

Current Financial Position & Property Pool

• Husband:

  • Said he was unemployed with an income of about $400 per week from Centrelink, yet he regularly flew overseas with financial support from his brother and wider family.

• Wife:

  • Relies on Centrelink, living in crisis accommodation with the children.

• Property Pool:

  • On one view, the pool comprised little but debt after the repossession of the Town D property.

Assessment of Contributions and Future Needs

• Contributions:

  • The wife's role as homemaker and carer was set against the financial support the husband provided, directly or through his family.

• Future Needs Adjustments:

  • The s 75(2) factors weighed heavily in the wife's favour: she is the primary carer of four young children with little or no support from the husband, and lives in crisis accommodation, which the court called an abrogation of the husband's responsibilities.

• Final Division:

  • Because of the scale of the husband's non-disclosure, the court made the orders the wife sought. The husband must pay the wife $300,000 within 42 days, and is restrained from leaving Australia until he has paid it.

Unique Aspects

• The husband relied heavily on family financial support, yet provided almost no financial documents.
• Witnesses the husband was expected to call were not called, and no reason was given.
• There was a stark contrast between the husband's lifestyle, supported by his family, and the wife's dire living conditions with the children.
• Where a party fails to make full financial disclosure, the court has a wide discretion, and here it exercised that discretion by granting the orders sought by the other party.

Main Takeaways

The court found that the husband's lack of financial disclosure made it impossible to identify the property clearly, and relied on long-standing authority to make the orders the wife sought, giving weight to her contributions as the children's carer and to her needs.

The law since this decision

This case was decided before 10 June 2025. From that date the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) sets out the steps for a property settlement in s 79(3) to (5), and the court must consider the effect of family violence on each party's contributions (s 79(4)(ca)) and on their current and future circumstances (s 79(5)(a)), and any material wastage of property (s 79(5)(d)). In Western Australia, a property case between married couples is decided under that Act in the Family Court of Western Australia. A case between de facto partners in Western Australia is decided under the Family Court Act 1997 (WA), which has not adopted those 2025 changes.