What Changed in the June 2025 Family Law Act Amendments
Before June 2025, family violence, including financial abuse, could sometimes be raised in a property settlement, but the law didn’t name it as a factor courts were required to weigh. Whether it was taken into account often depended on how it was argued, not whether it happened.
The 2025 amendments changed that. Financial abuse and coercive control are now named explicitly as factors a court must consider when deciding what is “just and equitable”, the legal standard behind every property settlement. A pattern of controlling money, information or decisions is no longer something a court might consider. It’s something a court must weigh, alongside contributions and future needs.
For Village Family Lawyers’ clients across Mount Eliza, Malvern and the wider Mornington Peninsula, this is the most significant development in this area of family law in years, and one most people going through separation have not yet heard about.
What Financial Abuse Looks Like — In Family Law Terms
Financial abuse, sometimes called economic abuse, is recognised as a form of family violence. It doesn’t require raised voices or physical harm to be real, and it rarely announces itself as “abuse” while it’s happening.
In family law terms, it typically includes controlling access to bank accounts and financial information, accumulating debt in the other person’s name without their knowledge, concealing assets or income, and preventing someone from working or building financial independence. Sometimes it’s subtler still, every financial decision made unilaterally, or a climate where questions feel unwelcome.
The dynamic rarely ends at separation. One person often still holds most of the knowledge, the documents and the control, while the other is asked to negotiate a settlement they cannot yet clearly see. Naming that pattern accurately, in the language the law now uses, is the first step toward addressing it.
Coercive Control: How the Pattern Is Now Recognised Under Australian Law
Coercive control describes a pattern of behaviour, not a single incident: sustained control over a person’s decisions, finances, movements or relationships that, over time, limits their freedom and independence. The June 2025 amendments recognise it alongside financial abuse specifically because the two so often work together, control over money is frequently how coercive control is exercised and maintained. That matters for property settlement because a pattern is often harder to demonstrate than a single event. The law now gives that pattern proper standing, so a court can weigh sustained control across the whole relationship rather than needing one dramatic moment to point to.
How a History of Financial Abuse Can Affect Your Property Settlement
A property settlement is built around what is “just and equitable” given the full picture, each party’s contributions, financial and non-financial, and their future needs. A documented history of financial abuse or coercive control now sits inside that assessment directly.
In practice, this can mean the settlement reflects the disadvantage the affected party experienced: reduced superannuation or savings, lost earning capacity, or debt accumulated without their knowledge or consent. It doesn’t automatically produce a particular outcome, every matter is assessed on its own facts, but the pattern itself is now a legitimate part of the settlement conversation, not something quietly set aside.
What Evidence Do You Need – and What Can You Do Right Now?
This is often the first fear that surfaces: “I don’t have proof.” You do not need a family violence order, a police report, or a folder of evidence prepared in advance for a court to consider financial abuse in your matter. The pattern is assessed on its own merits, drawing on the documentation that does exist and what can be obtained through the process itself.
Both parties in a family law matter must give full and frank financial disclosure, every account, asset, debt and income source. Where one person has controlled the information, disclosure is one of the most practical tools available to bring the real picture into view, with formal steps available if it’s incomplete or resisted. Where assets may be hidden or a business or trust is involved, Village Family Lawyers connects clients with forensic accountants and valuers through The Village Circle.
The single most useful thing you can do right now is start gathering what you have, bank statements, account records, correspondence about money, and get advice before agreeing to anything. The way a property settlement is structured shapes your financial position for years afterwards, and it is very difficult to undo once finalised.
Mediation After Financial Abuse: When It Works, When It Doesn’t
Mediation is not automatically off the table after financial abuse, but it is also not automatically the right next step, and Village Family Lawyers does not treat it as a default recommendation. Lauren Wilson and the team assess each client’s situation individually, because the right pathway depends entirely on what actually happened and how safe and viable it is to negotiate directly.
Where mediation is appropriate, it can be set up with real safeguards: separate rooms, shuttle negotiation where the parties never sit together, attending online, or lawyer-assisted mediation, where you have legal support with you throughout. Village Family Lawyers’ Family Law Mediation Support is built around exactly this kind of preparation, understanding your legal position, your financial picture and your goals before you’re ever in a room, virtual or otherwise, with the other party. No process should ask you to agree to anything before you feel informed and genuinely ready.
Understanding Where You Stand Is The First Step Forward
If any of this sounds familiar, you don’t need to have it all worked out before you reach out. Village Family Lawyers works exclusively in family law and takes a resolution-first, discreet approach, moving at a pace that feels safe and helping you see the full financial picture before you decide anything.
An Initial Consultation with Village Family Lawyers is a full, private conversation about your circumstances and options, available in person at Mount Eliza or Malvern, or online across Victoria.
