Free Consultation
Book a Free Consultation
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
When a marriage or de facto relationship ends and a company, a practice or a trading trust is part of the pool, we value it for the partner who keeps it, the partner who leaves it and the lawyers on each side, whether the matter settles by consent orders or goes before the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
In a Wollongong separation, a business in the property pool is valued as it stands when orders are made or the agreement is signed, on the basis of value the lawyers instruct. The valuer normalises owner pay and private spending, capitalises sustainable earnings, checks the result against sales and net assets, and isolates goodwill personal to the spouse.
Most property pools are straightforward to price until the business appears. The family home in Fairy Meadow or Shellharbour can be compared with recent sales nearby, and superannuation balances arrive on a statement. A dental practice in North Wollongong, an electrical contractor operating from Dapto, a Port Kembla engineering consultancy or a Crown Street cafe has no published price, so each partner tends to bring the figure that suits their side.
Under section 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) the Court's first task is to identify the property and decide what it is worth, before it turns to contributions and to each party's current and future circumstances. Separating de facto partners are dealt with under section 90SM of the same Act, and the lawyers confirm whether the threshold requirements are met. A business figure set too high leaves the keeping partner paying out on value that does not exist; one set too low gives the other partner less than their share.
The owner faces a second risk. Each party must give full and frank disclosure, and thin accounts, a sudden dip in profit or a slow reply to a document request are easily read as concealment. A figure from a valuer who acts for neither side puts both lawyers on equal footing early, and in our experience that is often the moment a long exchange of letters turns into signed consent orders.
Our work covers single expert reports on joint instructions, shadow expert reviews for one side and critiques of reports by other valuers, for families across Wollongong and the wider Illawarra, from Helensburgh in the north to Albion Park Rail, Shellharbour and Kiama in the south. Some matters are filed in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia; many more settle through consent orders or a binding financial agreement without anyone giving evidence.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Family Law Act sets no valuation standard. Your lawyer instructs us whether to value the business at market value or at its value to the partner who keeps it; we apply that basis from beginning to end and show the other figure wherever the difference matters.
When no sale is planned, the instruction is often to value the interest for the partner who retains it and not at what a stranger would pay. On that footing reliance on the owner may reduce value less, and a minority discount that a purchaser would demand may fall away. The report states its basis and sets market value alongside it wherever the two differ.
The Court divides the pool as it stands when orders are made or the agreement is struck. If a Unanderra fabrication business has grown sharply since the couple parted, it is valued at its present size. Whether that growth owes to one partner's effort after separation is a contributions point for the lawyers, and a second figure at the separation date lets them argue it on evidence.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia prefers a single expert whose overriding duty is to the Court. Either side can still engage a shadow expert to examine that report, draft questions for the single expert and advise on a settlement range; that advice is normally privileged and seldom filed.
When ledgers, bank statements or tax returns are withheld, the valuer does not resolve the doubt in favour of the party holding them back. The report records what was requested, what was supplied and how each gap bears on the figure, which gives the Court a basis to draw an adverse inference and often causes the documents to surface.
A frequent error is to treat a practitioner's earnings as goodwill in the business and then count the same earnings again as earning capacity when the Court weighs each party's future. If clients follow the individual, most of that income would not pass to a buyer and has no place in the pool. Our reports show how much of the profit would survive a change of owner, so the rest is dealt with in the right part of the case.
For most operating businesses and professional practices, the income approach, capitalising future maintainable earnings, leads. We normalise three to five years of results, settle the earnings the business can sustain, and apply a capitalisation rate or multiple that reflects the risk of those earnings. That mirrors how an informed buyer views a business, and the income approach is the framework that family lawyers and the Court expect to test.
Where a dependable forecast exists and earnings are moving, a discounted cash flow can lead instead: a medical group in the Wollongong CBD that has just opened new consulting rooms, say, or a Port Kembla contractor that has lost its largest customer. The asset approach sets the floor and leads where the entity mainly holds property or investments, such as a family trust that owns an industrial unit at Unanderra. The market approach tests the outcome against practice sales and industry benchmarks; a per-chair figure for a dental surgery or a multiple of recurring fees for an accounting firm serves as a cross-check and is never the method.
Two judgements decide most of these cases. The first is goodwill: what share of earnings would pass with the business to a new owner and what share stays with the partner through skill, reputation, referral relationships or a licence resting on them, as with a building company whose licence under the Home Building Act 1989 (NSW) depends on that partner's qualifications. The second is control: a spouse with a minority shareholding who in practice runs the company and decides its dividends should not automatically receive a minority discount, so the report works from how the company actually operates and not from the share register.
A shadow expert checks these points first, and what the shadow expert misses a well-prepared cross-examiner will often find.
A family law report is read by the other side's lawyers, often by a shadow expert and, if the matter does not resolve, by a judge, so its depth has to match that audience. The Indicative report plays a smaller part: a private early read, for internal decision-making, of the likely range for one partner deciding whether to settle at mediation or prepare for a contested hearing.
Each report states the instructions, the basis and date of valuation, the documents reviewed and the assumptions relied on. Each normalisation is listed together with its reason and its evidence. The report explains why the lead method was chosen, shows the cross-checks, treats goodwill and control in their own sections, and puts any limitation caused by incomplete disclosure where no reader can miss it. It follows the expert evidence requirements of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, which place the expert's overriding duty with the Court.
The certified valuer who signs the report attends conferences of experts, contributes to joint reports, answers written questions from either party through the proper channel, and gives evidence, including concurrently with the other expert, when a matter before the Court calls for it. No report helps either partner if its author will not defend it under oath, so we do not issue one.
Which assumption will the other expert attack first, and where does the report deal with it? If your valuer cannot say before the report reaches the Court, the answer will emerge in cross-examination, the most expensive place to hear it.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.