Financial disclosure in property cases

What is financial disclosure?

Financial disclosure is the process of sharing your financial information with your ex-partner. In a property settlement, you and your ex-partner must exchange financial disclosure. There are two duties of financial disclosure that you must follow:

1. a general duty to disclose all relevant information to an issue in your case, and
2. a duty to disclose all information about your financial circumstances.

These duties are ongoing. They begin when you start the pre-action procedures and continue until you reach an agreement or the court makes final orders.

The aim of financial disclosure is to make sure that you and your ex-partner can negotiate fairly and reach a fair agreement.

It also ensures the court has all the information that it needs to make orders that are fair. If the court doesn’t have all the information about your true financial position, it may not be able to make orders.

General duty of disclosure

While you are following the pre-action procedures, you and your ex-partner have a duty to provide full (complete) and frank (honest) financial disclosure in a timely manner. You must share with each other any information or documents that:

• you have or control, and
• are relevant to an issue in your case.

This general duty applies in both property and parenting cases. It applies if you are going to arbitration instead of court for a property settlement.

It is important that the information and documents you share are detailed enough that your ex-partner and the court can understand your complete financial circumstances. It is not enough to tell your ex-partner where to search for information or documents. If you don’t provide enough detailed information and documents, the court may decide that you didn’t comply with your duty.

What you don’t have to share

You don’t have to provide your ex-partner with a copy of any documents that:

• are privileged (confidential)
• that you don’t have
• you have already shared- if they haven’t been changed or marked in a way that is likely to affect the outcome of your case.

Duty to disclose financial circumstances

In addition to the general duty of disclosure, you and your ex-partner also have a further duty to provide full and frank (honest) disclosure of your financial circumstances. You must disclose your total direct and indirect financial circumstances.

This duty still applies even if you or your ex-partner are bankrupt. For more information, see Bankruptcy and property settlements.

If you are going to court, you must serve your ex-partner with a copy of:

• your three most recent tax returns and notices of assessment
• a completed superannuation information form for all your superannuation accounts
• if you have a self-managed superannuation fund – the trust deed and three most recent financial statements
• if you have an Australian Business Number (ABN) – the last four business activity statements (BAS) you have lodged
• the three most recent financial statements and the last four BAS lodged for any partnership, trust or company you have an interest in.

Income

You must disclose information about your income. This includes income that:

• is paid directly to you
• is paid to a related person or legal entity, for example, if you transfer part of your income to your family trust
• is earned by a legal entity that you own or control.

A legal entity is a:

• corporation, other than a public company
• trust
• partnership
• joint venture
• business, or
• other commercial activity.

Income is not treated as property in a property settlement.

Assets

You and your ex-partner must disclose information about the property that you own and have an interest in. This includes property that is owned by a legal entity that you own or control, like a business.

When making orders, the court must consider all property that you and your ex-partner own. The court has a wide discretion to make orders about this property.

For more information about what property is, see Property, debts and financial resources.

Assets disposed of

You and your ex-partner must disclose any assets that you have sold, transferred, assigned or gifted to someone in the 12 months before separation and since separation.

It doesn’t include any assets disposed of with your ex-partner’s consent or knowledge, or in the ordinary course of business.

Financial resources

You and your ex-partner must disclose any financial resources that you have.

A financial resource is money and other financial interests that you may be entitled to now, or in the future. It can include a future inheritance, long service leave, or distributions from a family trust.

The court will consider your financial resources, income and earning capacity when deciding whether to make property orders.

For more information about what are financial resources, see Property, debts and financial resources.

Debts

You and your ex-partner must disclose any debts that you have in your name only, or jointly with another person. This includes mortgages, credit cards, personal loans, unpaid tax and utilities.

You must also disclose any debts that you are owed – money that you have lent to someone else. These debts may be treated as a property.

For more information about debts, see Property, debts and financial resources.

Relevance

You only have to disclose, and can only request, information or documents that are relevant to an issue in your case.

Information or documents may be relevant to an issue if they ‘throw light’ on an issue or help the court to decide an issue.

When making a request for disclosure, it is important that you only ask for information and documents that are relevant to the issues in your case. You can’t request extra information just because you would like it. The disclosure process can only be used to find relevant documents and not to fish for information that might exist.

Similarly, when providing disclosure, you should only give the information and documents that are relevant to the issues in your case. You are not doing your duty by dumping lots of documents on your ex-partner, and leaving it up to them to sort through and find the relevant documents.

How to request and provide disclosure

As soon as you begin the pre-action procedures, you must exchange with your ex-partner:

• a schedule of assets, income and liabilities
• a list of the documents you have in your possession that are relevant to the issues your case
• a list of any documents you require your ex-partner to provide a copy of.

You can do this by sending them a letter with your schedule and financial disclosure, and requesting the same from them.

Use of disclosure

You can only use the information and documents you receive from your ex-partner for your case. You can’t share it with anyone, except with the court’s permission. You can’t share it online or on social media.

The court can make orders limiting who can inspect documents if you are concerned about:

• the extremely sensitive contents of a document – for example hospital notes or medical records
• a real risk that a document would be used for an improper purpose.

Undertaking

If your case goes to court, you must file an Undertaking as to disclosure.

This undertaking states that:

• you have read parts 6.1 and 6.2 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021
• you know and have followed your duty of disclosure.

It is illegal for you to sign an undertaking that you know, or should have known, is false or misleading. If you do, you can be fined.

If you breach your undertaking, you may be committing the offence of contempt of court. If you are found guilty of contempt of court, you can be:

• given a bond
• fined
• sentenced to imprisonment.

The court may also make a costs order against you.

Failure to disclose documents or information

If you don’t appropriately disclose the information that you must disclose, a court can:

• set aside your consent orders
• stay or dismiss all or part of your case
• make a costs order against you
• fine you
• send you to prison.

The court may not let you use any documents or information that you haven’t disclosed as evidence at a final hearing.

The court may also adjust the property settlement in favour of your ex-partner, if they have given full disclosure and you haven’t.

How the court responds to non-disclosure will depend on:

• the extent of non-disclosure
• the time when it was discovered
• whether there is any doubt about the relevance of what was not disclosed.

For more information, see Duty of disclosure on the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia website.

Binding financial agreements

You don’t have a duty of disclosure if you and your ex-partner are negotiating a binding financial agreement. You also don’t have to follow the pre-action procedures.

However, it is important that both parties disclose all relevant and current information about their financial circumstances. This is necessary to ensure that both parties can give their full and informed consent to the agreement. If you don’t provide full disclosure, there is a risk that your agreement can be challenged and set aside.  

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Last updated: July 2026