Beklar & Beklar

This matter concerned property proceedings between a husband and wife, heard by Ryan J. The wife sought orders altering the parties' rights and interests in their property, spousal maintenance, and a departure from the standard child support assessment.

The court was required to determine whether unvested share units from an employment equity plan constituted an asset or a financial resource, given that they could not be sold, assigned, or dealt with until vesting. Further issues included whether assets disposed of after separation, specifically funds used to pay legal fees, should be notionally added back to the asset pool. The court also considered the wife's entitlement to spousal maintenance, given her years out of the workforce and the need for retraining, and whether special circumstances existed to justify a departure from the standard child support assessment, considering the parties' expected standard of education for their children and the wife's limited capacity to contribute.

Applying the principles in *Stanford v Stanford* [2012] HCA 52, the court found that the unvested share units were a financial resource, not an asset. Regarding the legal fees, the court determined that payments made by the husband from post-separation income were to be taken into account under s 75(2)(o) of the *Family Law Act 1975* (Cth). The wife's payment of legal fees was treated as a premature distribution of property that no longer existed, to be dealt with under s 79 of the Act rather than by creating a notional pool. The wife was awarded spousal maintenance for the remainder of the year to facilitate her return to full-time employment. For child support, the court made a closed period order, finding that while the children's attendance at private schools reflected the parties' expected standard of education, there was a risk of hardship to the liable parent if an order was made for the total duration sought, and the wife's necessary commitments exhausted her income, limiting her capacity to contribute.