Can the Super Splitting provisions of the Family Law Act be used to split a husband’s super interest with a third party?
The Family Court held no and declined to make the proposed splitting order. The Court held that the splitting provisions of the Family Law Act only permitted splitting of super interests between couples – whether married or defacto.
In this case, the husband was indebted to his former mother-in-law and husband and wife had agreed that the husband’s super interest would be split in favour of the mother-in-law as partial payment of that debt.
Presumably, the only source of money available to the husband to make the partial payment was his super which could not otherwise be accessed due to the preservation rules.
Full marks for lateral thinking but not successful this time.
Case: Stant & Stant and Anor [2015] FamCA 734.
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