Marriage Separation Checklist Australia
For a separation checklist in Australia to help you learn the best way to separate, read through our family law process.
- 1
Start a diary documenting all events and conversations — it will make it easier to recall when things happened and what was said.
- 2
Change your passwords immediately — banking, email, social media and credit card PINs — to prevent unauthorised access.
- 3
Open a separate bank account for your post-separation income.
- 4
Secure valuable and sentimental items.
- 5
Update your will — separation alone does not revoke a will, so your ex-partner may remain a beneficiary unless you update it.
- 6
Revoke any power of attorney naming your ex-partner.
- 7
Consider changing locks, or arrange who moves out.
- 8
Stop automatic payments where necessary, and monitor joint accounts for unauthorised withdrawals.
- 9
Notify your children's school of the separation.
- 10
Update Centrelink.
- 11
Remove your name from shared utility accounts where appropriate.
- 12
Begin negotiating with your ex-partner, if it's safe to do so, and keep a record of those negotiations.
- 13
Retain your children's passports, or complete Child Alert forms, to help prevent unauthorised overseas removal.
- 14
Contact the Child Support Agency to establish payments from the date of separation.
- 15
Formalise arrangements through consent orders or a financial agreement, and consider Family Dispute Resolution mediation through Relationships Australia — then move forward with your life.