Court or Tribunal: Federal Circuit Court of Australia
Catchwords: Briginshaw test, Contributions, De Facto Relationship, De Facto Relationships, Meaningful Relationship, Proceedings to Alter Property Interests, Property, Substantial Relationship
Judges:  Judge Brewster

Background: The case involved a sex worker who made a claim for a property order against a former client turned partner of 8 years. The applicant alleged that she lived in a de facto relationship with the respondent from 2003 until 2011. The parties met in 1999 when the applicant “was employed as a sex worker and the respondent was one of her clients”, their relationship evolving to a point where the “applicant began to involve the respondent with her family” and from “2000 onwards the sexual relationship between the parties ceased to be a commercial one” 
 
  [Legal Issue]The Court ultimately found that whilst the parties did have a relationship that exceeded “friendship”, it was not enough to constitute a de-facto relationship. There was no financial interdependence or children of the relationship and the applicant did not give up sex work for the respondent. In any event, the Court held that on the facts, it would not be just and equitable to make orders altering the party’s property interests. Parties to a supposed de-facto relationship must evidence more than a mere sexual relationship. The Court will consider the totality of the relationship including amongst others, living arrangements and financial interdependence to establish the existence of a de-facto relationship.   [Court Orders]The Court found that the couple were not in a de facto relationship and as such the claim for property fails.      

Court or Tribunal: High Court of Australia
Catchwords: Appeal, Proceedings to Alter Property Interests, Property, Property Settlement
Judges:  Bell JFrench CJHayne JHeydon J

Background: The husband and wife married in 1971. In December 2008, the wife suffered a stroke and moved into full time residential care. She was later diagnosed with dementia. The husband continued to provide for her care and set aside money in a bank account to meet the costs of her medical needs or requirements. He continued to live in the matrimonial home. In 2009, the wife (by one of her daughters as case guardian) applied to the Family Court for orders altering interests in the marital property between the wife and her husband. Under the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth), a court can make a property settlement order if it is "just and equitable" to do so. At first instance, a magistrate ordered that the husband pay his wife $612,931, which represented the amount assessed as her contribution to the ma 
 
  [Legal Issue]The wife (on behalf of one of her daughters as case guardians), sought to have the family home sold, and half the proceedings to go to the daughters. The legal pretext to this action was the albeit involuntary physical separation of the couple. The husband was still residing in the family home, while the wife was moved into full time residential care because of a stroke and dementia. The husband argued that the bare fact of physical separation, when involuntary, does not on its own make it just and equitable to make a property settlement order.   [Court Orders]The Court held that there was no basis to conclude that it would have been just and equitable to make a property settlement order had the wife been alive. She had not expressed a wish to divide the property, a property settlement order would require the husband to sell the matrimonial home, in which he still lived, and the Full Court had found, on the material before the magistrate, that her needs were being met or could be met by a maintenance order. The bare fact of physical separation, when i