Frequently Used Words

No need to be confused, here is a short glossary with all of the strange words your lawyer might use during your separation.

Here is our quick glossary with some easy to understand definitions for frequently used words and phrases.

Adjustment Payment / Adjustment Sum: This is money one person might have to pay the other to make things fair when dividing up property after a breakup.

Asset: Something valuable that a person or couple owns, like money, a car, a house, or a business.

Chattels: These are things at the house you can move around, like furniture, electronics and tools.

Child Support: This is money that one parent pays the other to help take care of their kids, like paying for food, clothes, and school.

Contracting Out Agreement: This is a written agreement that a couple makes before they break up, to decide how to divide their property if do separate.

Disclosure / Discovery: This is a process where each person gives the other documents and information about all of the property they have.

De Facto Partner: This is someone who’s in a relationship with another person and lives with them like a couple, but they’re not married.

Economic Disparity: This is where one person in the couple has to live on less money because of decisions made during the relationship, like one person staying home to look after kids while the other works.

Family Home: This is the house where the couple lived together.

Intermingling: Where relationship property and separate property has been mixed up together.

Liability: This is something a person or couple owes, like a mortgage or credit card.

Maintenance: This is money one person in the couple might have to pay the other after they break up, to help them with living costs.

Proceedings: This is what happens when people go to court to sort out disagreements, like who gets what property after a breakup.

Property: This includes real estate (houses and sections), as well as other assets like bank accounts, cars and KiwiSavers.

Relationship Debt: A loan or money owed by the couple or one person that was used for something the couple shared, like the family home or everyday living expenses.

Relationship Property: This is stuff that the law recognises as belonging to a couple (even if it is only in one person’s name), and will need to be divided between them if they break up.

Separate Debt: A loan or money owed by just one person in the couple, for something that didn’t benefit both of them.

Separate Property: This is stuff that belongs to just one person in the couple. Most of the time, it doesn’t need to be shared when they break up.

Separation Date: This is the day that the couple broke up.

Short Duration Relationship: This is a relationship that lasts less than three years.