In de facto property adjustment proceedings under Part 19 of the Property Law Act 1974 (Qld), a court must not start from a presumption of equality of contributions and adjust from that point. Where one party has contributed the entirety of the purchase price of relationship property and unchallenged valuation evidence attributes capital appreciation to market conditions, the other party's non-financial contributions (renovations, maintenance) justify only a modest interest in that property. An applicant for a property adjustment order bears the burden of providing relevant evidence to value their non-financial contribution.
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