Divorce or Separation

The assets in the SMSF are part of property settlement based on the family law.

We provide taxation and strategic planning advice to help you choose the best option to split the assets in the SMSF between you and your ex-partner following separation.

The most common options are:

1. Rollover of Unadjusted Member Balances: The parties can exclude the SMSF assets from the property settlement and roll over the member balance to their new super fund respectively;
2. Binding Financial Agreement: This agreement is for parties to separate on good terms. This agreement can be reached before, during and after the divorce. The independent legal advice needs to be obtained and it is not necessarily stamped by the court;
3. Consent Order: the superannuation can be included in the  property settlement Consent Order. Obviously the consent order is stamped and sealed by the court and is therefore legally binding;
4. Family Court Judgement: The court order will state how to split the entitle fund assets between parties and each party has to take actions to rectify this. Sometimes, it can be time consuming and costly if one party is not cooperative to provide the rollover super fund details or sign the resignation minutes or documents;
5. Do Nothing: The parties can operate the SMSF as usual and do not make any changes. This can happen if they have real estate investments in the SMSF and both parities do not want to sell it.

The services we can provide to you and your SMSF:

• Rollover statements preparation and rollover amount calculation
• Removing/adding a member and trustee
• CGT rollover relief advice
• In-specie transfer advice
• Resolving conflict between parties
• Winding up the SMSF
• Liaising with the family law legal practitioners
• Other SMSF services for marriage breakdowns

Please feel to contact us if you want to know more in details.