Michael and his wife separated and needed to include the division of superannuation assets in their property settlement. The following case study is an excerpt of a conversation that took place in December 2017.
“If they’d wanted it all upfront there was no way I would have shelled out for it but having seen the template, I filled that out and I didn’t have any concerns with it.”
Getting the whole separation agreement together is fairly complex, you need to do a full asset and liability schedule on both sides and determine things such as the property value and stuff.
RP Emery’s service was excellent. They were responsive to a few questions that I had. They were easily contactable and dealt with my queries quickly.
The template was fairly well laid out. You get the templates, the user guide and some examples. Some examples clauses you could put in if you wanted to modify your agreement.
The guides made the completion of the superannuation splitting agreement fairly straightforward.
Even someone who has no legal experience would be able to put it together.
It was a two-stage process, you paid $200 for the template and then you were going to pay $1500 for the advice.
If they’d wanted it all upfront there was no way I would have shelled out for it but having seen the template, I filled that out I didn’t have any concerns with it.
It was straightforward, easy, very efficient and once the process was started it was quick.
What happens is you fill out your form, you get your draft back to RP Emery, he proofs it and once the draft is approved, you pay for the Legal review Service and then a solicitor calls you and a solicitor calls your wife so you get your independent legal advice.
Ian (from RP Emery) even made some enquiries with the superfund to make it a bit easier, to save us doing it.
It was Fast, straightforward and met my needs.
I had a call from my solicitor on the following day and then the requirements to have the legal advice were complied with within 3 days on both sides. It was fast.
My lawyer and my wife’s solicitor said RP Emery were experienced and that they genuinely felt like they were acting in our best interests. They were professional and experienced. The whole thing was signed in about a week and a half. So yeah it was fast.
You can stay out of Court
The benefit of doing something like this is you can stay out of court. It’s certainly much easier than doing the process in court. If you can get to this point and you’re amicable with your spouse at this stage to get this done then it’s beneficial to everybody.
It was a good professional service, it did exactly what I wanted it to do and we wound up with a good admissible agreement in what is a short period of time with essentially minimal fuss.
Conversation with Michael Robinson in December 2017