We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 January 2019
THE NEW ZEALAND LAW COMMISSION'S REVIEW OF RELATIONSHIP PROPERTY
The New Zealand Government asked the New Zealand Law Commission (the Law Commission) (a body charged with carrying out research and consultation into areas of laws that potentially need reform) to carry out a review into relationship property law in New Zealand. As a result, the Law Commission produced a comprehensive Issues Paper which forms the basis for consultation and submissions on whether or not changes are needed to the law. This chapter will analyse four central issues pertaining to relationship property law: economic disparity, property held on trust, contracting out of the Property (Relationships) Act 1976, and children's interests in relationship property proceedings.
ECONOMIC DISPARITY
In 1976, New Zealand passed the Matrimonial Property Act 1976 (the ‘original Act ’). The original Act applied only to married couples, although there was debate at the time as to whether or not it should apply to de facto couples as well. The original Act was based on the principle that marriage is a partnership of equals, with each partner contributing in different but equal ways to the acquisition of what was then called ‘matrimonial property ’. The parties ‘home and family chattels were to be divided equally, no matter when they were acquired (whether before or after the marriage) unless extraordinary circumstances made equal sharing repugnant to justice, or in circumstances where the marriage was for less than three years in duration. Other assets acquired during the marriage also had to be divided equally, unless the contributions of one spouse were clearly greater than the other. The original Act set out the financial and non-financial contributions to a marriage in the following exhaustive list:
(a) The care of any child of the marriage or of any aged or infirm relative or dependant of the husband or wife:
(b) The management of the household and the performance of household duties:
(c) The provision of money, including the earning of income, for the purposes of the marriage partnership:
(d) The acquisition or creation of matrimonial property, including the payment of money for those purposes:
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.
