You’ve been living together for a while now. Someone at work said two years. Your sister swore it was six months. A website you found last night said twelve. So which is it? If you’re trying to work out the rules for a de facto relationship Victoria couples live under, the honest answer is that three different laws are giving three different numbers, and each one is answering a different question. We sort that out below. We’re a family law firm with a Melbourne office, and this is one of the questions we get asked most.
The short answer. For property and maintenance claims, the number is two years. You need to have lived together on a genuine domestic basis for at least two years before a court can divide your property. But there are three situations where that rule falls away completely. And the twelve-month figure you may have read about belongs to immigration law, not family law.
Is there a 12-month de facto rule in Victoria?
Not in family law. There isn’t one.
The twelve-month rule is real, but it belongs to the visa system. If you’re applying for a partner visa, the Department of Home Affairs usually wants to see that you’ve been in a de facto relationship for at least twelve months before you apply. That’s an immigration requirement. It has nothing to do with whether you can claim a share of the house.
The six-month figure floats around too. That one seems to come from Centrelink, which assesses whether you’re a member of a couple based on the facts of your life rather than a fixed waiting period.
So you can be de facto for one purpose and not another. That sounds strange until you see why. Each system is asking its own question. Immigration wants to know if the relationship is genuine enough to support a visa. Centrelink wants to know how to calculate your payment. Family law wants to know whether a court should have power over your property.
Here’s how the three line up:
| What you’re asking about | The threshold | Which law |
|---|---|---|
| Property settlement or maintenance after you separate | 2 years living together | Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) |
| Partner visa (subclass 820 or 309) | 12 months de facto | Migration Regulations 1994 (Cth) |
| Centrelink payments | No fixed period, assessed on the facts | Social Security Act 1991 (Cth) |
What we commonly see: people read the twelve-month figure on a migration site, assume it applies to them, and relax. Then they separate at eighteen months and discover the family law door is shut. If your question is about property, ignore the visa number.
What actually counts as a de facto relationship
The test sits in section 4AA of the Family Law Act. You’re de facto if you’re a couple living together on a genuine domestic basis, you’re not married to each other, and you’re not related by family.
That last bit sounds obvious. The rest is where it gets slippery.
The Act lists nine things a court can weigh up. How long you’ve been together. Whether you share a home, and how. Whether there’s a sexual relationship. How financially entangled you are. Who owns what, and how you use it. How committed you are to a shared life. Whether you’ve registered the relationship. Whether you care for children together. And how the relationship looks to the outside world.
No single one decides it. You don’t need all nine. A court looks at the whole picture and forms a view.
What people often misunderstand: they think there’s a checklist and a score. There isn’t. Two couples with identical living arrangements can land on opposite sides of the line because of how their finances work, or because one of them told everyone they were single. If you want the factor-by-factor breakdown, we’ve covered it in detail in our national guide to de facto relationships.
When the two-year rule doesn't apply
This is the part almost nobody writes about, and it changes outcomes.
Section 90SB says a court can only make property orders if one of four things is true. The first is the two-year rule everyone knows. The other three are ways around it.
You have a child together. If there’s a child of the relationship, the two-year requirement drops away. A relationship of eight months can still support a property claim.
You registered the relationship. If you registered under Victorian law, you’re in. No waiting period. More on this below, because it’s the option people miss.
You made substantial contributions and missing out would be seriously unjust. This one is harder. You’d need to show real contributions, financial or otherwise, and that a court refusing to help would produce a serious injustice. It’s a genuine path, but it’s argued, not assumed.
One more thing worth knowing. The two years don’t have to be continuous. The section talks about “the period, or the total of the periods” of the relationship. So if you were together, split for a few months, then got back together, those separate stretches can be added up. That isn’t a fourth exception. It’s part of how the two years are counted, and it rescues more people than you’d think.
Questions we ask before advising: was there ever a child, including one who has since grown up? Did you ever register? Did you put money into a property in the other person’s name? Any one of those answers can move a case from hopeless to arguable.
How to Register a De Facto Relationship in Victoria
Victoria lets couples register their relationship through Births, Deaths and Marriages. It’s a state system that sits alongside the federal property rules. Quietly, it’s one of the most useful things an unmarried couple can do.
You can apply if you’re both over 18 and at least one of you lives in Victoria. Neither of you can be married or already registered. You both take part, and you both prove your identity. Registration takes at least 28 days from the day the registry gets a complete application.
Why bother? Two reasons, and the second one surprises people.
First, registering removes the two-year requirement for a property claim. That’s section 90SB again. If you’ve been together fourteen months and you’ve just bought a flat together, registration closes a real gap.
Second, it also removes the twelve-month requirement for a partner visa. Home Affairs waives that waiting period if you’ve registered your relationship with a state registry. So one form solves two different problems in two different systems.
Where this gets complicated: registration cuts both ways. It makes it easier for your partner to claim against your assets too. If you’re the one with the property, that’s worth thinking through before you file. This is the kind of decision that deserves twenty minutes with a lawyer rather than a late-night search.
Victoria Legal Aid publishes a plain-English summary of how de facto rules work in this state, and it’s a reasonable free starting point if you just want the basics.
Ending a de facto relationship in Victoria
There’s no divorce for de facto couples. You separate, and that’s it. No court, no paperwork, no waiting period.
Which sounds simple, and creates its own problem: there’s no document proving when it ended. The separation date matters enormously, and we’ll come back to why in a moment.
If you registered your relationship, that’s different. A registered relationship has to be formally revoked through Births, Deaths and Marriages, or it continues on paper after it’s over in life.
Then there’s separation under one roof. Plenty of Melbourne couples separate and keep living in the same house because neither can afford to move out. You can absolutely be separated while sharing an address. You’d need evidence: separate rooms, separate finances, people you told. It’s provable. It just takes more work.
What you’re entitled to when it ends
Once you’re over the threshold, de facto couples get broadly the same property rights as married couples. Same four-step process. Same power to split superannuation. Same ability to seek maintenance.
The court identifies what there is and what it’s worth. It looks at what each of you contributed, financially and otherwise. It considers your future circumstances, including earning capacity, health and care of children. Then it asks whether the split is just and equitable.
Since June 2025, the Act also requires the court to consider the effect of family violence on a person’s ability to contribute. That sits in section 90SM(4)(ca) for de facto couples.
| Married | De facto in Victoria | |
|---|---|---|
| Property settlement available | Yes | Yes, once you clear the threshold |
| Superannuation splitting | Yes | Yes |
| Partner maintenance | Yes | Yes |
| Time limit to apply | 12 months from divorce | 2 years from separation |
| Have to prove the relationship existed | No | Yes, and this is the hard part |
That last row is the whole difference. A marriage certificate settles the question in one document. Being de facto has to be established with evidence, and the other side may well dispute it.
Children, and agreements that head all this off
Two things sit alongside the property question, and Legal Aid covers both while most law firm pages skip them.
Children first. Parenting arrangements have nothing to do with whether you were de facto. There’s no two-year threshold, no registration requirement, and no waiting period. If you have a child together, either parent can seek parenting orders regardless of how long the relationship lasted or whether it ever met the de facto test. The two questions run on separate tracks, and people conflate them constantly.
Second, you can settle the property question in advance. De facto couples can make a binding financial agreement, the same instrument married couples use as a prenup, under Part VIIIAB of the Family Law Act. It sets out who gets what if you separate, and it sidesteps the whole argument about whether you were de facto and for how long. We’ve written about prenuptial agreements for de facto couples if that’s the direction you’re leaning.
You have two years to make a claim
Section 44 gives you two years from the end of the relationship to apply for property orders. Miss it and you need the court’s permission to proceed, which is not a formality.
The clock runs from separation, not from when someone moved out, and not from when you stopped being friendly. Those dates are often months apart.
The mistake we see most: people spend eighteen months trying to sort it out privately, get nowhere, and come in at twenty-three months. That’s not enough time to do it properly. If you’re a year out and still stuck, that’s the moment to get advice, not later.
How to prove you were de facto
If your ex disputes the relationship, you’ll need evidence. Joint bank accounts. A lease or mortgage in both names. Utility bills. Photos across the years. Travel bookings. Insurance policies naming each other. Statements from friends and family who saw how you lived.
The strongest evidence is usually boring and financial. A shared account with five years of groceries on it does more work than any photo album, because it’s dated, it’s hard to argue with, and nobody set it up to prove a point.
Start gathering it early, because access to shared accounts and old emails has a habit of disappearing after a separation. Screenshot what you can while you still have logins. We’ve written a fuller guide on proving you were de facto if you want the detail.
De Facto Lawyer Melbourne: How Unified Lawyers Can Help
Most de facto disputes we handle in Victoria aren’t arguments about the law. They’re arguments about facts. Were you a couple, or housemates who slept together? Did it run two years, or one year and ten months? When exactly did it end? That’s where these cases are won and lost.
Our family lawyers in Melbourne run the same triage every time. Does an exception get you over the line? Is registration worth doing now? How much runway is left on the two-year limit? Then we look at the property: what’s there, what it’s worth, whose name it’s in. Where there’s super, a business or a trust, we bring in valuers and forensic accountants so the numbers hold up.
We work on fixed fees for most of this, so you know the cost before you commit. We’re one of the largest dedicated family law firms in the country, so we’ve seen most versions of this before. Nothing you tell us leaves the room.
If you’re unsure where you stand, get in touch with us today. A short conversation early is usually cheaper than a long argument later, and it tells you whether you have something worth pursuing. We’ll walk you through every step from there.
Frequently asked questions
Can my de facto partner take half my house?
Not automatically. There’s no presumption of a half share for de facto couples, and there isn’t one for married couples either. A court looks at contributions and future needs, then decides what’s just and equitable. Sometimes that’s half. Often it isn’t.
Do we have to live together full-time to be de facto?
No. Couples who keep two homes, or who spend part of the week apart for work, can still be de facto. Living arrangements are one factor among nine. The more unusual your arrangement, the more the other factors have to do the work.
Can you be de facto while married to someone else?
Yes. The Act allows a person to be de facto with one person while still legally married to another. It comes up more often than you’d expect, usually where a divorce was never finalised.
Does registering our relationship change our tax or Centrelink status?
Registration is a Victorian relationship record. It doesn’t decide your tax or Centrelink position, which are assessed on your circumstances. Check with the ATO or Services Australia before assuming either way.
What if my partner denies we were ever de facto?
Then it becomes an evidence question, and the court decides. This is common in shorter relationships and where finances were kept separate. The stronger your documents, the shorter the argument.
Are the rules the same in every state?
The property rules are federal, so they apply the same way across Australia. Relationship registration is state-run, so the process differs. New South Wales has its own scheme, and we’ve covered the rules for de facto couples there separately.
Where that leaves you
If you’ve been together under two years, you’re not necessarily locked out. A child, a registration, or substantial contributions can each open the door. If you’re over two years, you’re in, and the real work is proving the dates and sorting out the property.
Either way, the useful move is to find out where you stand while you still have time to do something about it.