Family Courts Act 2024
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Amendment of section 8 of Family Law Act 1981 | ||
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76. The Family Law Act 1981 is amended by the substitution of the following section for section 8 : | ||
“Jurisdiction (sections 6 and 7) | ||
8. (1) Subject to subsection (2), the Family District Court, the Family Circuit Court and the Family High Court shall concurrently have jurisdiction to hear and determine proceedings under section 6 or 7. | ||
(2) Subject to section 67 of the Family Courts Act 2024 and subsection (4), the Family District Court shall not have jurisdiction to hear and determine proceedings under section 6 or 7 where the amount claimed exceeds €1 million. | ||
(3) Subject to section 67 of the Family Courts Act 2024 and subsection (4), where proceedings are brought in the Family District Court and the court is of the view, on the basis of the evidence before it, that the market value of the land to which the proceedings relate exceeds €1 million, the court shall transfer the proceedings to the Family Circuit Court, but any order made or act done in the course of such proceedings before such transfer shall be valid unless discharged or varied by order of the Family Circuit Court. | ||
(4) The Minister for Justice may by order increase the amount referred to in subsections (2) and (3) up to a maximum amount of €2 million where he or she considers it appropriate to do so having regard to— | ||
(a) changes in the market value of land, | ||
(b) the need to minimise the costs of proceedings, and | ||
(c) the guiding principles in section 8 of the Family Courts Act 2024. | ||
(5) In this section, ‘market value’ means, in relation to land, the price that would have been obtained in respect of the unencumbranced fee simple were the land to have been sold on the open market, in the year immediately preceding the bringing of the proceedings concerned, in such manner and subject to such conditions as might reasonably be calculated to have resulted in the vendor obtaining the best price for the land. | ||
(6) Every order made by the Minister for Justice under subsection (4) shall be laid before each House of the Oireachtas as soon as may be after it is made and, if a resolution annulling the order is passed by either such House within the next 21 days on which that House sits after the order is laid before it, the order shall be annulled accordingly, but without prejudice to the validity of anything previously done thereunder.”. |