Married or de facto in WA: why the June 2025 property changes apply to only one of you

On 10 June 2025 the Commonwealth rewrote the property rules in the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth). The changes were widely reported: a set order of steps for the court, express attention to family violence, rules about wasted money and debts, and orders about pets.

If you were married, those changes apply to your Perth property case. If you were in a de facto relationship in Western Australia, they do not. WA de facto property is decided under Part 5A of the Family Court Act 1997 (WA), and as at 27 October 2026 the WA Parliament has not amended Part 5A to match. The WA register shows no version of that Act after the one that began on 18 December 2025.

Both kinds of case are heard in the same building, the Family Court of Western Australia, often by the same judges and magistrates. The law they apply depends on whether you married.

What changed for married couples

The amended s 79 now tells the court what to consider, in an order that mirrors how judges already reasoned. The court:

(a) identifies the parties' existing legal and equitable interests in property, and their existing liabilities;

(b) considers each party's contributions, financial and non-financial, including as homemaker and parent;

(c) considers each party's current and future circumstances, such as age, health, income, earning capacity and the care of children; and

(d) makes an order only if it is just and equitable.

Several new considerations are written into those steps.

(a) Family violence. The court must consider the effect of family violence on a party's ability to make contributions, and its economic effect on that party's current and future circumstances.

(b) Wastage. The court must consider material wastage of property caused intentionally or recklessly by a party, such as gambling away savings or destroying assets.

(c) Liabilities. The court must consider the debts each party incurred, and the circumstances in which they were incurred.

(d) Companion animals. Pets are dealt with separately. The court can order that one party owns a pet, or that it be transferred or sold, having regard to matters such as who cared for it and any family violence or cruelty.

Two other changes matter in practice. Section 71B puts the duty of full and frank financial disclosure into the Act itself, and it starts before any case is filed. And the costs rule moved to s 114UB, which lists among its factors a party's failure to disclose.

What still applies to WA de facto couples

For a WA de facto couple, s 205ZG of the WA Act is in the form it had before June 2025. The court must still be satisfied that the order is just and equitable, and it must still consider contributions and future circumstances. But the WA Act does not contain:

(a) the express step of identifying existing interests and liabilities;

(b) any express reference to family violence, either as it affected contributions or as it affects future circumstances;

(c) a wastage provision or a liabilities provision; or

(d) any power to make orders about pets as a separate kind of property.

The maintenance factors in s 205ZD(3) are likewise unchanged. They have no family violence paragraph, while the federal list in s 75(2) now has one.

Disclosure differs too. For a WA de facto property claim the duty of disclosure comes from the court's rules, mainly r 197 of the Family Court Rules 2021 (WA), not from a statute. The exception is the superannuation part of the case, which runs under federal law and has a statutory duty in s 90YJA. Costs are governed by s 237 of the WA Act, which still follows the old federal model. In both cases the starting point is that each party pays their own costs.

Does family violence still count for a WA de facto partner?

Yes, but the route is different. Before the 2025 changes, courts across Australia had for years accepted that family violence which made a party's contributions more arduous could be taken into account in assessing those contributions. That body of case law still applies to s 205ZG, because the WA provision is the same as the old federal one. The future circumstances factors in s 205ZD(3) are also broad enough to take in the economic effect of violence on someone's health and earning capacity.

What a WA de facto partner cannot say is that the statute requires the court to consider family violence. Their lawyer has to build the argument from the older cases and the evidence. In practice, that means detailed evidence linking the violence to its effect on contributions, health, work and finances. A married party now has an express statutory hook, but still needs the same quality of evidence.

Wasted money and debts in a de facto case

Under the older law, a court could already deal with money one party deliberately or recklessly wasted, usually by treating it as an early distribution of property to that party, or by allowing for it in the overall result. Debts were also considered. The difference is that the federal Act now lists these matters, while for a WA de facto couple they rest on case law.

Why this matters to you

Three practical points follow.

(a) Check which regime you are in before you rely on anything you have read. Most articles published since June 2025, including government fact sheets, describe the federal law only.

(b) If you were in a long de facto relationship that ended in marriage, the marriage decides the regime. If you never married, it is the WA Act.

(c) If family violence affected your finances, gather the evidence early, whichever regime applies. Medical records, messages, police reports and evidence of lost work all matter.

The firm can tell you which law governs your case and how the court is likely to approach it. The answer is rarely the one in the headline.

This article is general information about the law in Western Australia as at 27 October 2026. It is not legal advice about your situation.