Is the Family Court doing enough to protect vulnerable seniors?
Over60 community member, Mary Green, 69, asks whether the Family Courts of Australia is doing enough to protect the interests of vulnerable senior citizens.
About five years ago I published a short story about falling in love at 63 shortly after being unexpectedly dumped by my spouse of 43 years. When I was on crutches after knee surgery, he sent me a text message saying "Don't come home. I changed the locks"
Back then this was a happy new love story, but little did I realise that not only would I feel like a refugee forever, grieving for my home I never saw again, but that when I realised he offered me not a dollar to live on, I had to start spending my hard-saved superannuation on getting to the point where the Court would order him to pay up.
Senior citizens are divorcing at an astonishing rate. In some parts of America, it is one in four over 50. Yet we have to take our turn in the same system trained in child custody and maintenance cases, and we are put back at the end of queues and every obstacle raised by the evicting spouse causes more delays.
It took five years before I got the money from him to buy a new home. I squeezed into a tiny studio, where an adult son took the couch so I could manage the situation. Doctors treated for me anxiety. They missed the clues that I had developed angina.
At 68 I finally bid against first home buyers to buy and furnish a small flat near my son. But as I still felt ill, I drove myself to hospital, scared of being called neurotic, and the emergency department took me seriously when I said I was about to have a heart attack. They didn't let me go home. They gave me a triple bypass.
I am now 69 and finally enjoying my new bed in my new flat while recovering from open heart surgery.
This raises the question. Why was my progress constantly delayed by a Family Court System that is not designed to understand the needs of our age group? I could have died waiting.
The Federal Family Court has now commenced a review. They know they are behind the times and under-resourced, but I have asked those running the review if senior citizens as a group are on their list for special consideration and get no replies.
We need a system that is monitoring our health, that understands we may be too old to put big sums of cash in a Final Orders settlement back into superannuation in one year. They need to know that if we have been married with grandchildren then we should be splitting the proceeds equally and speedily.
I went through this ordeal knowing I could get as little as 30 per cent because of an inheritance received by my spouse more than 30 years ago and since gambled away. I had a five-day hearing by a newly appointed judge that had no idea that by leaving all the tangible assets like the home, investments and superannuation in his name, (all valued at fire sale prices) he was also getting the intangibles like tax benefits and loan borrowing facilities. And I had cash to buy a flat and start again.
Judges are not trained to do anything but follow precedents. These precedents are not applicable to retirees who can't just start again. We need a better way.
It's scary to realise that just five years ago Centrelink labelled me as disabled and too old to retrain and ineligible to help, the legal women's services were in overload, and if it wasn't for the wonderful emotional support of my partner, children and grandchildren I would by now be another homeless pensioner statistic.
Other than starting a petition I am not yet strong enough to manage, does any reader know how we can be heard?
What are your thoughts on this contentious issue? Let us know in the comments below.