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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Dated, reasoned market values that your SMSF auditor can follow and accept, for the fund assets with no screen price: shares in the family company, units in a related trust, a Unanderra workshop or Dapto factory unit leased to the members' business, and loans to related parties.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
An SMSF must show its assets at market value at 30 June and keep objective, supportable evidence behind each figure. Where an asset has no quoted price, such as private company shares, related trust units, premises leased to the members' business or a loan, Illawarra trustees need a dated valuation from someone independent of the fund.
An SMSF auditor signs two opinions each year, one on the financial statements and one on compliance with superannuation law, and both rest on asset values. Listed shares and cash can be checked against a statement in minutes. A slice of the members' own business is different: the auditor must be satisfied that the number in the accounts is a market value and not a hopeful guess, and the trustees carry the job of showing it.
Funds run by Illawarra business families tend to hold a recognisable set of hard-to-value assets. An industrial unit in the Unanderra, Dapto or Port Kembla areas leased to the members' trade or engineering company. A shop or office near Crown Street let to the family's own practice. A holiday rental or cafe premises at Kiama or Shellharbour. A minority interest in a North Wollongong professional firm, units in a trust that owns commercial property, or a loan to a relative's company. Each one calls for a method, evidence and valuation date suited to why the figure is needed.
That figure travels further than most trustees expect. It feeds into each member's total superannuation balance, which governs contribution caps and Division 296. It sets the transfer balance credit when a retirement phase pension starts, and with it that year's minimum payment. It determines whether the fund stays inside the 5 per cent in-house asset limit. If a related-party price strays from market, the non-arm's length income rules can tax the affected income at the top rate.
We value the unlisted assets auditors question most, dated to whatever event needs the number. Trustees decide, the accountant prepares the accounts and the auditor applies the law; our job is to supply a value with its reasoning laid out so each of them can rely on it.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Regulation 8.02B of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994 requires an SMSF to prepare its financial statements with assets stated at market value. The ATO's guidance on valuing SMSF assets looks for objective, supportable evidence prepared by someone with suitable skills and refreshed when circumstances change. A full formal valuation is not needed for every asset every year; in between, a recorded review confirming that nothing material has moved may do.
The annual statements show each asset at market value on the last day of the year. A figure rolled forward unchanged, with no sign of review, prompts questions, and if the auditor cannot be satisfied about a material asset the audit report has to be qualified and a contravention report to the ATO may follow.
Fund assets valued on the commencement day set the credit to the member's transfer balance account and the starting point for the minimum annual payment. Both are awkward to correct after reporting, so when an unlisted asset supports the pension it makes sense to have it valued as at that day.
A fund may acquire only limited classes of asset from a related party, business real property being one, and must pay market value; a disposal to a related party must also be at arm's length. Moving a Port Kembla factory or a Dapto commercial unit into the fund, or selling family company shares out of it, calls for a valuation dated to the transfer. Where duty applies to a property transfer, value matters for that purpose as well, so one piece of evidence can often serve both.
Benefit payments and rollovers, a switch from accumulation to retirement phase, a wind up, and anything else that could move a value materially before the next 30 June: the anchor tenant leaving a suburban shopping centre, an investee company losing a key contract, a seasonal downturn hitting a tourism tenant at Kiama, or the death of a member.
Division 296 imposes extra tax on the earnings that relate to the part of a member's total superannuation balance sitting over its threshold, and the first balances to be measured are those at 30 June 2026. A fund holding property, private company shares or unlisted trust units on that day needs a market value for each as at 30 June 2026, even if none was commissioned when the date passed. A valuation prepared today can address that date, as long as it draws only on facts known or reasonably knowable then. The same number can serve again if the fund's adviser proposes resetting the cost base of fund assets to their 30 June 2026 values. The thresholds, rates and elections for each member are for your adviser to confirm; we provide the values.
An auditor's first question is whether the method fits the asset, so our report starts there too. A company holding only cash and listed securities can be valued on net assets. A trading company cannot, because the goodwill a buyer would pay for its earnings is absent from its balance sheet.
Private company shares and units in a trading trust are valued under the income approach: normalised maintainable earnings capitalised at a rate reflecting risk, tested against sales evidence, with net assets as the floor. Where the fund holds less than control, the report asks whether the facts, including the shareholders' agreement and dividend history, support a discount for lack of control or marketability, and explains the answer. A discount taken by habit fails review just as surely as one nobody considered.
Business real property leased to the members' business needs a capital value and a market rent, and rent is where support most often goes missing. Leasing evidence can usually be found across the industrial areas of Unanderra, Dapto, Port Kembla and Albion Park Rail, and around the Wollongong CBD and North Wollongong commercial areas; where the capital value is material, a registered property valuer's report sits behind it. Units in a related unit trust are valued alongside the trust's underlying assets at the same date, and we confirm the trust still meets the conditions that keep the units outside the in-house asset limit. Loans are tested on whether the borrower can truly repay, what security supports the debt and whether an unrelated lender would accept its terms. Collectables have their own regulation, including the need for a qualified independent valuer when one is sold to a related party.
Auditors keep finding the same gaps. Any of them can produce a qualified audit report or a contravention report, and each is prevented by a fitting method applied at the right date.
The fund's auditor reads an SMSF valuation every year, and the ATO reads one now and then. A certified Summary report usually serves, since the method, evidence and reasoning are on the page and the auditor does not need our working papers. The Detailed report earns its extra depth when a related-party transfer is large, a pension is starting on a significant unlisted asset, or a member's Division 296 balance at 30 June 2026 turns on the result.
The report opens with the event that triggered it, the valuation date, the standard of value and the documents relied on, then values each asset by the method suited to it. A trading company is supported by a normalisation schedule, maintainable earnings and a capitalisation rate, all sourced. Leased premises are supported by sales and rental evidence side by side. The reconciliation shows how the conclusion was reached so the auditor can follow it unaided, though we are glad to take the call.
A certified valuer with no stake in the fund, its members or the valued entities signs each report, answers the auditor's queries and defends the opinion if the ATO reviews the fund. That independence is much of what the auditor relies on, and it is why a short letter from the fund's own accountant rarely settles the matter. If the same asset is contested later, for example in a family provision claim under the Succession Act 2006 (NSW) or a shareholder dispute before the Supreme Court of New South Wales, the valuer who signed the SMSF report can explain the figure.
Pick the largest asset in the fund with no quoted price. If the auditor asked for its evidence next week, would you hand over a dated, reasoned report from someone who gains nothing from the number, or a figure copied from last year? If it is the second, begin with that asset.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.