Disclosure is now the law, not just a rule
Since 10 June 2025, the duty to lay out your full financial position is written into the Family Law Act itself, and it is ongoing rather than a one-off. Holding back or hiding can cost you, both in a costs order and in how the property is divided. The cheapest way to meet it is to keep one honest, organised picture from the start.
When a relationship ends and money has to be sorted out, the law expects you to be an open book about your finances. That has always been true in practice. What changed in 2025 is that the expectation is now written plainly into the Family Law Act, with real consequences for getting it wrong, and a quiet cost attached to getting it right the hard way.
What changed
From 10 June 2025, the duty to give full and frank financial disclosure sits in the Family Law Act itself, rather than tucked away in the court rules where it lived before. The obligation is not new. Its status is. The change was made to put beyond doubt that laying out your financial position is a core legal duty, not a procedural box to tick.
It is also ongoing. Disclosure is not a single form you hand over once and forget. As your situation changes, a new account, a sold asset, a fresh debt, the duty to keep the other side informed carries on until your matter is resolved.
What you have to show
In plain terms, you are expected to give a complete and honest picture of your financial position: what you earn, what you own, what you owe, and any financial resources you can draw on. That includes the things it might be tempting to leave out because they feel private or complicated.
The test is not whether something helps or hurts your case. The test is whether it is relevant to your finances. If it is, it goes in.
What happens if you hold back
The consequences for hiding or failing to disclose are real. A court can order you to pay the other side's legal costs, which means their lawyer's bills land on you. It can adjust the property split against you. And the other side can compel you to produce records you would rather not, which tends to look worse than simply having handed them over.
None of that needs bad intent to bite. Forgetting, delaying, or being vague can land you in the same place as someone deliberately hiding, because from the outside they look the same.
Where the cost comes from
Disclosure does not have to cost much. Whether it does comes down to one thing: how organised your records are.
If your records are clean and well organised, disclosure is close to a tick box. Your lawyer passes the pack on and moves to the next thing.
If they are disorganised, look evasive, or have gaps, that is what creates work. Each gap raises a question. Each question means back and forth between the lawyers, and often a letter to put it in writing. Every one of those rounds takes time, and time is billed, frequently at $700 or more a round.
Because disclosure is ongoing, those rounds can repeat each time something changes. That is how a monthly legal bill quietly climbs higher than it needed to be. None of it is about legal skill. It is about how much tidying someone has to do before your position is clear.
How to make it cheap
You do not need to be an accountant or a filing expert. You need one honest picture of your finances that you keep current.
Pull together what you earn, own and owe, and the records that back each item, in one place. Label them clearly. When something changes that is more than normal ongoing day to day costs, update that one picture and provide a short summary of why, rather than starting again.
If you are unsure what counts or how far back to go, that is a short and worthwhile question for a family law adviser. Answered once, early, it saves you guessing later.
The short version
Disclosure is now plainly the law, it does not switch off, and if you are not on top of it your separation will cost more than it needed to. Prepare the picture once, keep it current, and the obligation costs you almost nothing.