Under the Property (Relationships) Act 1984 (NSW), the Family Court practice of adding back legal costs to the property pool does not apply because there is no equivalent of s 177 of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) and costs follow the event in NSW proceedings. The court takes property as it finds it at the date of trial, and add-back is the exception, applicable only where a party has acted unreasonably, recklessly or wantonly, or has embarked on a course of conduct designed to reduce the value of property. Parties who wish legal costs to be taken into account must adduce evidence of those costs and ask the court to consider them.
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