I want a divorce, or do I? Tips from the inside

Happens the Divorce Down Under Podcast where we talk about the video. everything and everything family law related.

Welcome to another episode of Split Happens, the Divorce Down Under podcast with me, Alex, and my fellow family lawyer, Liza. Liza. Hi. Hi. I thought we might talk about some general hints and tips for people who may be about to go through a separation. maybe are going through separation, how they can keep their costs down, how they can get through the whole process.

as easily as possible um and hopefully as quickly as possible. So rather than focusing upon you know the legal lives that we live all the time with procedures and cases and rules and forms, just talking about

Things that people might do if they're thinking about separating. And look, the the first thing I wrote down when I thought about this was, are you really ready to separate? Have you contemplated reconciliation? Yeah, because not every fight or dispute, disagreement, whatever it is, is going to end in a separation. I heard um I was talking to a friend of mine this morning and she said, Oh, have you heard that

Such and such was saying to you know, about this other person that they're separating and and I just said, Well, are they? Are they really separating or did they just have a fight? You know? It can be a situational dynamic, can't it, where like you know, it's like the cat and dog type relationships, they're very different.

Um, I've certainly had clients of mine that have come in and it's absolutely definitely this time. Let's get it moving, we're gonna move on, we're gonna file here, file there, and then The next time you talk to them in a few weeks' time, oh no, we're all fine, we're all back together. But if if you are not sure about separating then

My advice on that would be to try and reach out to, you know, f your friends, your family, your support network. Talk it through. Be very clear about your decision and before you make some sort of irrevocable announcement and determination. Maybe get some s some couples counselling, maybe go and see a family therapist, Contact Relationships Australia, they do all sorts of communication with people to try and improve that. Yeah.

I think I think too, um, what a lot of people don't do and they seem to forget how to do is to s talk to each other. So I know that we're talking saying, Well, you know, I I'm assuming that in most cases you've you've probably tried talking, you've probably yeah, you know, been even to the extent Perhaps yelling or there's been being getting ignored or whatever the case may be.

Try and make that time. So set aside a moment, you know, everyone's leading busy lives. You've got kids. Um, try and make sure that you set aside that time to say, Okay, look, let's take stock of where we are in our lives.

What do we want? Um, make sure that those you know, when you got married or when you got together, you probably had a lot in common. You probably had an idea of where you wanted to go and and but sometimes these things change and you can't really help that. So It's always an idea to make sure that you're on the same path because if you're on the same path still, but there's just a few disagreements, then it may not be uh necessary for you to The separation is a very final thing.

It is it look it sort of casts me back when you say, Why don't you talk to each other? It's a p the do you you obviously remember John Mortimer, the the late Q C who wrote all the Rumpole books and one of those was the divorce case. It was Rumpole and the Married Lady. all to do with a couple who had for for years, well three years or so, only communicated by leaving messages to each other, written written pieces of paper on the kitchen table and so on.

And they they move to a divorce and there's Rumpel on one side and his friend George Frabisher on the other. And then as the case develops, it becomes apparent these people actually still love one another. They haven't been communicating because the notes are increasingly acerbic.

And the it turns out and transpires that the author of those notes was their son, who was benefiting by having presents from both parents and was enjoying, you know, the the attention of both of them singularly. But um communication is the key. Uh in this day of text and emails and all the other bits and pieces, the way that people communicate these days, very few will sit down face to face and have a little chat. And it's really and I know I I'm All the time.

We're all guilty of f fobbing, isn't it? Too busy, too busy. I'll just send them a text. I'll just you know, send them a text that pass this message on, uh, you know, can you stop doing this or whatever? Um stop doing that. Stop doing that sort of behaviour and and just Yeah. Get in front of them and and have a chat. people. Turn off the T V or turn off the screen these days, yeah. Get a babysitter.

Get a life outside of of screens and sometimes outside of the children,'cause that could be a big draw. But this this isn't this isn't of course a sort of uh necessarily a relationship or dating advice podcast, but it's a it's a a thing that we need to contemplate when we're talking to people that come to see us for the first time. You know, often is the relationship really over? Have you sat down, have you talked about it? Is there anything that could be done to risk rescue the relationship?

You're talking about a long term relationship and maybe there are Cheltern and Make sure that your mind is properly set and you know what's coming.

Well I had a chat to someone the other day. They didn't have any kids. They're they're it's he this fellow's quite a young person and Kids, no real property yet, but is still seeing those red flags in in relation to that relationship. Um, and what I've said to

about what are what are your long term goals and if it's if they're in line with her long term goals then great. But if you can see that there's a great potential if you both just a highly volatile couple for whatever and some people are, it might be an idea to think about getting a a pre Yeah. Yeah, that's I I I ironically I've got one right now where there's a couple who uh th i they're on rocky ground, let's put it that way. They're still together.

But you know, our fellow is thinking, Oh I don't want this to become worse. If i if we break up and then we end up in a horrible court battle I don't want to do that and I don't think th the lady can send us either, so we're just trying to A just in case paper. The the the prenup well in that case it's sort of during relationship, which you can do as well.

Yeah, go and have a chat with with your family lawyer and they'll point you in the right direction as to which agreement will work for you. But there's one for all relationships pretty well. Doesn't matter whether you're married, doesn't matter whether you're de facto, whether you've started living together, whether you've finished living together.

You can capture all those things that would otherwise be dealt with in a nasty property court case by private agreement. You can do that. But you've got to make sure that you get your family lawyer to draft it for you. Wheels are for the dead and prenups are for when you live. Although without getting into a succession podcast, you could always have contracts to make mutual wills and things. Oh yes. Well anyway. Uh okay, so let's let's roll it forward just a little bit now.

Yeah, we perceive, that's it. The relationships run its course and um we're gonna separate. But We we're not under any kind of sense of great danger, there's no safety or urgency issues that would just mean you haven't just got to go in the middle of the night and run and start from there. This is sort of a more thought out process.

Um obviously I'm bound to say, and I dare say you would too, pick up the phone, make an appointment, go and see a family law solicitor, somebody to give you specific advice about where you might stand.

They can talk to you about what the arrangements would be about making a divorce application. They can talk to you about who's gonna get what in terms of the property that you own together, what the arrangements might be for the kids, whether anybody's gonna be paying each other maintenance or not. You can talk about those things so you have a good general understanding of how the land of the law lies and where you might fit into all of that. Before you do anything irrevocable.

Um the other people that um I think it might help you to talk to, I mean if you're a business person you probably want to have a chat with your accountant. 'Cause you might have set up your business with trusts involved or, you know, proprietary limited companies where both of you are directors and shareholders. So you've got to think about how you might unravel yourselves from each other's financial lives. In a way that's fair to both of you and it's practical.

People don't realise how intermingled their financial affairs are until you start getting into into Yeah, it's it's not until you go through that separate and the the clearer the communication with your accountant, with your lawyer, then the the easier things will be. I'm not gonna say it's easy, but the easier they will be than if things are just left and they lurch along and nobody's too sure.

y where you have a matter with you know family trusts or self managed super funds, things can get very expensive to unravel very quickly and that gets to be a bit of a difficult If you've got keb

then at some stage you're going to have to tell the children about what's going on. Now, neither of us are qualified psychologists n nor family counsellors, but we deal with people like that all the time and we go ymwneud â nhw'n ymwneud â nhw'n ymwneud â nhw'n ymwneud â nhw'n ymwneud â nhw'n ymwneud â nhw What are the s some of the points and pointers or tips that you might give to a parent that's coming to ask you, how do I tell the children? Apart from get some advice from a counsellor. Yeah.

Yeah. Um th well that would be my first one is to actually get some professional help in that regard. But sometimes it depends on how old the kids are and things like that. But um I always think honestly Brutal honesty. That that honesty where it's you know, they you don't they don't need to know um absolutely every detail.

But just that, um, you know, mummy and daddy are going to live apart for a while and and things like that is you know, um It is very tricky because As a lawyer, we're not really meant to try and get our clients to involve the kids in their parenting. There needs to be that level of honesty and respect and just let them know because it's it's very confusing for kids. Like well what's going on Yeah, it's it's like, oh, all of a sudden daddy was here sleeping next to my

doesn't come home anymore. So they they are going to need some assistance. So you're gonna need to probably explain things to them. If you don't know um how your child's going to receive it. Say your child might have some special needs, there might be some audit Um it's definitely recommended that you can Go with someone and and speak to someone first before you approach that because that can of course Um kids that are really lifting.

They're usually a bit more resilient than the others. They'll just go, Okay. It's just yeah, it's just a slightly different change but and of course when parents separate when children are very, very young, then those children grow up and that's all that they have. Yeah. It's more the children who are of say that primary type school age and it comes as a shock to them.

That there could be some you know, maybe get some structural building around that and that could be talking to school counsellors. It could be if if you have a a doctor get a referral to a psychologist if you think that's necessary. Yeah. Um

Family and friends of course are you gonna be your first point of call and and they'll gauge whether the children I've already twigged there's something going on. High school type children, they're probably gonna be fairly intuitive as to what's happening in And they'll they'll have probably expected it. Yeah, and they yeah, they will have friends who will have been through this. It won't be the great shock or surprise perhaps that you're expecting.

But I really I like your suggestion about the school counsellors and and having that school on site because as long as See it's a it's a very disruptive time for everyone in the family. So one thing that you really need to be doing is communicating with that school so that the school knows what's going on, so that they can, you know Pay a bit of attention, see what's happening, see if there's any

If the k if the kids acting out then they'll understand the reasons behind it a little bit more. So the kids won't sort of get into a spiral of trouble. It's helpful to if you have a good relationship with your schools uh sorry, with your school and with the teachers that your kids have got.

then have a chat to them directly. Uh and that's, you know, both mum and dad. I'm not saying that one person should be doing this behind the other person's back. I'm saying it should be a collaborative approach where possible so that the children can be sort of worked through this as much as the adults.

As adults, I'm gonna advise you to go rely heavily on your own personal support network. You know, that what do they say everybody's got a village? get out there and and talk to you know, your family, talk to your friends, your brothers, your sisters, your best mate. Make sure that you've got somebody to unload your worries to because just talking about them can probably

help get some context around them. It gets harder when people are on their own in different you know towns or if they're remote. Yeah. There's lots of community centres as well that um if you contact libraries, the library they'll put you in touch with um a lot of different community groups for those sorts of library You can go into a library and get an awful lot of information about some of the you know the the areas of the And they don't just have bullshit.

Computers and everything. So you don't have to feel like you're going backwards in time. It's I'm all for spiriting libraries. I I I use ours on the gold coast. Um and you'll you'll find a lot of resources available for free in the community out there. We we're very fortunate on the Gold Coast. There are some excellent community legal

And that's a place that you might think about going to. Look if you're just thinking about it and not sure where to go first or next. Want to talk to somebody who knows a little bit about the law? You could find yourself at a community legal centre, you know, here on the coast. We have them operating by Rabina Libraries actually, um Thursday evenings I believe.

Uh and that's a free drop-in service there and there are others available not not just that one, I'm not sprooking that one in particular. But get some help in the community, legal services, before you start formalizing things and getting your lawyers to write letters to his or her lawyers.

I look I I'm not a big fan of um having these lawyer letters. I know that Ironic'cause I'm a lawyer. But No, I've got I've got a long one. It's all right. But the thing is I I think um It's actually been a little bit refreshing lately. I've had a number of people um where I've been representing Um the other party hasn't been remote. And, you know, I I've said to my client, Well, I don't plan to um create more of a fuss for you and I want to make this into a fight. It's not a fight.

It doesn't need to become a fight just because I've got involved. And let's try and collaborate with that other party and say, look, let's see In a nice manner, in a nice framework, you know, so that we're not the the big scary getting these big long let letters that you know, that says we demand and this is what you've only done this and you've only done that and you set out all this procedural history.

That both parties are going to think that they're right in terms of and their their memory is more correct than the other and It's a fight, isn't it? For no real reason. It turns everybody into it. Um I I wrote a letter the other day so You know, um both parties have different versions of the of the historical facts, but I'm not gonna repeat them.

Yeah. Are we going to entertain any of that sort of discussion? It's Yeah, and and we both know that if you do get into that sort of positional fight and it goes all the way down to a final hearing in a court two years and a hundred thousand dollars from now. Then a judge is not going to make a decision about who was telling the truth about what happened on Aunt Mabel's christening or what have you. It makes no difference.

at all. They'll decide things that are relevant to getting an outcome for property issues and parenting issues. They are not going to be making judgment over who was, you know, who is the villain of the piece and different family events. It's not that. It's not that at all. Yeah. So it's really important to if you're engaging that lawyer at the start for that assistant.

Try and and put some boundaries in place and say, Look, I really want to keep this nice. I don't I don't want and I don't want you, as my lawyer, to be writing these nasty letters um with a positional tone I I don't want any of that. I want it to be stress free and not not be there to frighten or harass or do anything that's going to make the other side feel uncomfortable. I want them to feel that they can read your letter and go, Oh yeah, that makes sense.

That's the that's the approach that really that you should be asking your lawyer to take. F funnily enough, I was gonna get onto this and I'll jump ahead to it now. with Alban Legal. For all your family law needs, call us on zero seven. 62044 or visit our website at arbanlegal.com.au.

If you're looking at this sort of the world of sem of separation and you've got to tie up things legally, uh you've got to work out who's gonna keep what property. There's gonna be transfers need to be done, maybe somebody has to buy somebody out and it could be super splitting and all sorts of things. That's before you talk about the children, but that all sounds like it's gonna cost a bunch of money. And it and it can cost you.

mentioned a few minutes ago there. If you go to a trial, the the pair of you could spend two years fighting back and forth and easily get through a hundred thousand dollars by the time it's all finished in legal fees. Instead. ymwneud â'r ffeydd, ymwneud â'r ffeydd, ymwneud â'r ffeydd, ymwneud â'r ffeydd, ymwneud â'r ffeydd, ymwneud â'r ffeydd, ymwneud â'r ffeydd, ymwneud â'r ffeydd. So how would you suggest that somebody keeps their costs down? Some good tips and hints around keeping it legal?

I know that it's easier said than done and people are going to have disagreements about what they want at the end of Take it back to that time when Try and get yourself to that position where you think There was once upon a time when we were able to talk, we were able to get along, we were able to agree on things, we we able to Find those. We laugh together and we love together once. So there's something within those relationships.

so that you can look at it from that perspective and go What I like to do is I like to explore it from the other person's perspective. don't like to say, okay, right, well here's here is my position. I am my lawyer has told me that I'm entitled to this. Oh, any lawyer who says

Oh, I was writing something the other day. There was someone mentioned something about being in a correspondence being supremely confident and I just went, Oh, okay. Clearly that's um that's a very junior lawyer who hasn't really had any experience at all because Any lawyer that knows what they're doing is never supremely confident that the court's gonna find a particular way.

Old Barrist, a colleague of mine, always talks about there's no such thing as the unwinnable case, there's no such thing as the unlosable case. You think you're gonna get uh one outcome on the Pretty early in your career. Do, you think, Well that went really well. I can't wait for the judgment. Oh my god, it's a disaster. So remain remain cordial, as you say. I mean Just be nice. And and look at it. No. You just have to be polite.

Explore where they're coming from, understanding what their position is. Yeah. And that they understand yours, um, you're off Yeah what's driving. And then you can narrow those easily. Really? So in in a lot of litigation type cases, like commercial litigation, it's a very positional style set of bargaining, you know? You've got insurer Your PI background. I just can't stand them. But anyway anyone anyone who knows me knows that. Um inter except my public my um professional.

Um but anyway, um so you've got, you know, one party bit a hundred, the other party is at two hundred, you know that at the end of the day it's gonna probably settle at about one fifty or thereabouts. Because that's just they just chip away. So it's a similar principle in terms of when you're talking about negotiating and trying to keep these costs down, you're trying to chip away at all the other issues that crop up and you go, Right, well we can Mm-hmm.

And you narrow the issues that are in dispute. Then you go We've only got this one little issue to talk about. It's only about what what is the percentage of the proceeds of sale of the home? You've now even come so far as agreeing to sell the home. It's just about what's the agre the agreed percentage of the proceeds of sale. It's a very, very small amount. So then you're and then in mo Being able to that. adopted an it what I call a bit more of an interest based approach. Right.

You've been out to narrow all you. For a fraction of the cost, you haven't had to go down this whole litigation path. You haven't had to file proceedings and going you know, to justify your position. Because once you say it in an affidavit, I said this to my opponent the other day, I said, I'm refusing To put on an affidavit by my client. Because it's you know, the other party is a a family member Mm-hmm.

That he, you know, related by blood. Well, I'm not going to get him to put in put on an affidavit at these things that once he says it, he can't unsay it. It's out there forever, isn't it? Bye. So much worse. Beyond the proceedings.

It you really need to just keep on that keep on that exploration, those interests. Uh and I think you you used that word that I went ooh to a minute ago which was entitled When Somebody Has a Sense of Entitlement it's probably come from a place where somebody has told them, Hey, you should get this, you should get that. And one thing I I often say to people is look

Your next door neighbour, your brother, your friend, the person on Facebook that you worked with twenty years ago, their lives, their experiences, their family arrangements and set ups are all unique to them. Don't expect that what happened in their case will happen in your case. It's very nuanced. Everybody's cases is differ are different. So Bloke says in Pub is not a good, you know, reliable guide as to what's going forward. Your family law solicitor will deal with hundreds of cases.

And they will be familiar with what the range of settlements are likely to be. My advice is listen to that advice and act on it early on. Get a settlement organized. Grit your teeth if you have to. Give something away if you have to. Buy your ticket to freedom. Yeah. There you go. That could be the episode title. Um write that we'll write the one down for our uh our beloved producer, Matt.

Um but my my thoughts too are uh never become too entrenched about things and if you become emotionally attached to property, whether it's real estate, a car, a painting, anything, it's just a thing. Things can be replaced. your you know your mental wealth your m mental welfare, the health of your family, those things can't be. Those are the things you've got to really focus on. Make sure that you're okay, make sure your kids are okay. And be mindful that

The other person should be okay too. If they're the if they're the father or the mother of your children, you don't want them in a dark place. You want them to be okay as much as, you know, you can be in a post relationship universe. So You know, don't be vindictive, don't be spiteful, be always commercial. Take your solicitor's advice. If you feel that your solicitor is um how can I put it? Well you were saying positional, you know, so they are very much a black and white. No, no, you must get

We'll get and no and not a cent blessed. Well, maybe that person hasn't been through the ringer themselves or haven't done it very often. Uh and they maybe are being too positional for you because fighting over that five percent difference could cost you twenty five percent of the whole pool. So be careful.

Okay, but we've talked about ideally when you're getting on okay, you're fairly cordial, you can be polite to the other person, but and that that that might be the case, but maybe they just drag their heels over and think they're super slow. And they won't sort of come to the table or they won't give you information and say you're struggling to make progress with it. You've worked out what the property is.

Sheep and you figure out that. But they just won't communicate effectively and they they're sort of hiding, they don't want it to be dealt with. Any sort of hints and tips as to how you could bring that person to the party? There's the obvious one. File. Yeah, you'd say that the ex barrister kind of. Yeah, here we go. I was going to say get in touch with a mediator and have them reach. ترجمة نانسي قنقر If you're not sure. Filing your knife.

Yeah you could you could sell you could just tell that that's exactly where I was going with that fire. I set that. It's the obvious thing to do. It's the obvious thing to do, but the problem is it all you're really doing is you're filing to get in the queue. Because it's going to take in most cases, if people are dragging their f if it's a problem. Um that's it exactly. I'm not talking about urgent things to do with kids. I'm talking about like a property. Right.

is the this is more common And it's really difficult because you've got to spend all that money preparing all the documents and filing in a c in a um in a court. for the court to then say, Okay, cool, well, we'll be see you back here in another ten months. Yeah. Yeah. The distance between court dates is quite startling when you if you're un unaccustomed to it.

Yeah. Oh my goodness me, we've got our first return date, say two or three months after the date that we filed proceedings and we filed everything, and maybe they haven't filed anything'cause they will ignore it till the last minute. Get there on that first return date. The other side might be told to file some documents within a fortnight or Or a mm-hmm. And they don't but you don't have another court hearing maybe for another three months.

So then you can't and then you go back and whinge to the the court about them not doing those things and they've only just done it about a week ago. So you need more time. And you know a at which point you you you're furiously agreeing because of course it does. But you just couldn't get them there in the first place.

Well I mean I had a a mediation that was ordered by a court the uh um in June and We turned up on the morning and I'm there with with my client and his support person and I get a phone call from the solicitor on the other side saying, Oh yeah, not coming, I've just been fired the night before and it was a public holiday, couldn't tell anybody, so there'll be nobody here.

Mediator's going, Well, I'm sorry, but I'm booked out for the day. I'm here for you people and what a waste of absolute time. So horses and water, sometimes you have to file. Sometimes mediation isn't gonna work. But m honestly, most of the time it will. most things will settle before you ever get to a final hearing. So

Whilst we talk about tens of thousands of dollars in legal costs, sometimes hundreds of thousands that can be the case if you fight over every last scrap and thing. I mean Yeah, I mean we talked about the Strahm case you know a few episodes back where people spent tens of millions of dollars on legal fees.

And we can weep and we can flick through BMW brochures, but you know, I'm I don't really ever want a client of of ours to go through that kind of decade long, excoriatingly expensive processes. So if you have to push the other person by starting proceedings, do that. But ideally, you know, try everything beforehand, you know, get your lawyer to write them nice letters, get mediators involved, third party approach.

Come up with a different idea. You might have uh a a shared accountant, for example, and you maybe need to sort things out of business. Have a meeting about that. Whatever you can do to try and bring the process along you should do. Yeah. Um and only as a last resort then, as the preaction procedures tell us, should you file in court. But if you're gonna file, get on with it and do it. That's right. Get in that queue. Get in. Um but then when you're in that queue

you've got to create issues. Now the amount of times that I've seen people file and then all of a sudden they want they want to have a fight about disclosure. They want to have Why about that? You don't if you don't if that's not an issue, just You don't spin it. Any work. Don't instruct anyone to do anything.

Your turn, you've done your you've exchanged your disclosure documents, you've had a mediation, it hasn't settled, you now have to wait your ten months or however long before the compliance and readiness hearing to then say, yes, we want a trial date. For it then to go back to a another date to get and then get the trial date. Yep. Uh oh and don't forget you'll be probably compelled along the way to try family dispute resolution again. Another one.

Another one and I know I'd still be advocating to my clients, just continue to make offers. Yeah. Because at some point it'll probably settle. That's right. You'll get to that point of Everybody knows how much everything's worth, all the valuations in, all the experts reviews are in, the disclosures all sorted. We know where this is gonna finish. Put the offer in and make it a reasonable one.

Be as I said before, be commercial. Anything you do to try and get these things finished and keep your bills down, be commercial. Don't It's like um it's like with that ticket what as I call it the ticket.

So it's not just because your lawyer might have said, Oh, I think there's a range here between fifty to sixty percent um of what's reasonable or something like that, you might be adamant that you will take no less But if you know that it's not you're not going to be heard for another um two years, you're not gonna get to a trial date um y you know, it might be and you're gonna it you're gonna spend money in order to get that.

It may be worth your while thinking, Okay, right, well What I like to call uh you know, you you call it I'm gonna swear here. Turn your volume down if you've got kids around. Um it's called the dick the dickhead deduction. Yeah. So you just reduce your amount that you're willing to take off because you're dealing with a dickhead. who just won't come to the party, but you just want this over and done.

Okay. So if you want to have if you want to have um this over and done with, sometimes there's a price and if you're willing to pay that or compromise on it, yeah. Then that's your choice. That's the more polite way of putting it.

It's the way of jump jumping the queue at at Movie World or something, isn't it, where they you grind your teeth and think, How how should I possi I pay a fortune for this ticket? Why should I pay an extra fortune to get to the front of the queue? And then you look at the queue and think, That's why. So, you know, there are ways around it. So you can look at it and go, Mm. Is it really do I really want to fight this? Do I really am I just prepared just to take this amount because

Maybe. There is there is value in having something d over and done with now. A couple of very different ways of speeding up the process. One, jump off to court. If they're not doing anything and they're ignoring you, jump off to court. Get it on get it on the conveyor belt. That that lovely conveyor belt where everybody gets to be made into a pie at the end of it. And then alternatively, uh or maybe concurrently, give the other person a really good offer.

Really good offer the uh where they would be a mug to turn it down. Set yourself up. You can get maybe get a costs order from the court at the end of it because the court will turn around to them and to use your expression. Um there is the dickhead that is going to be made to pay the costs. Sorry, I should have given you a warning to turn down the volume there as well. Yeah.

Okay, so we've got processes in and around going to court. We've got processes before going before going to court and you know, talk to your family lawyer, talk to your accountants, talk to your psychologist if you need some support for the children or If you've got... Any questions that you know we haven't covered in this and this is a very general sort of topic today.

Um then please let us have a an email drop us an email to the podcast and we'll take those up. Negotiating an outcome with with somebody is always going to give you a better outcome. It'll be quicker it'll be within the range because if it's going to be made as court orders, it has to be. The courts cannot make orders that are unfair, then they don't have the power to do that. So you do have that as a safety net. if you want to b if you really want to throw yourself under the bus.

And make a bad bargain, you'll have to do that with a private agreement. Yep. So don't feel that by putting out there a very good offer to the other side and then that the court suddenly approve it and go, Oh, it was such a good offer But remember the court would have approved.

And you're out of it. And you're moving on. And if you haven't been idiots to each other and and written nasty things in affidavits, then you've got a chance of sort of maintaining a cordial relationship and You know, maybe you will dance the funky chicken together and and your kids' twenty fifth wedding anniversary in the future, you never know.

Right. Well, thanks very much for listening to Split Happens, the Divorced Out Under podcast with me, Alex, and my family-law colleague Liza. Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more.