Mar­i­lyn Haupt­mann fea­tured in AFR arti­cle on pro­tect­ing your wealth if you split up

Fam­i­ly Law spe­cial­ist Mar­i­lyn Haupt­mann has been cit­ed in a recent Aus­tralian Finan­cial Review arti­cle dis­cussing the small mea­sures that can be tak­en pre­emp­tive­ly to improve the chances of pro­tect­ing wealth if a rela­tion­ship splits up. Mar­i­lyn observed that:

​“For younger cou­ples who don’t want to go down the pre-nup route, metic­u­lous record-keep­ing of assets kept sep­a­rate may reduce the like­li­hood it will be added to the over­all wealth pot, says Mar­i­lyn Haupt­mann, a part­ner at Swaab Attorneys. 

“Say some­one receives a gift dur­ing the course of their mar­riage, like an inher­i­tance, and they min­gle that with oth­er assets – they reduce the mort­gage, they buy a prop­er­ty – it’s no longer pro­tect­ed at all. But if you can show the court that from day one you have attempt­ed to keep every­thing sep­a­rate, it will assist a tiny bit,” she says. 

“It does­n’t mean that the court can’t look at those assets, [but] if it’s total­ly kept sep­a­rate, it’s eas­i­er to pin­point your con­tri­bu­tions on that side of the ledger.”

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