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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Independent valuations of businesses, practices and company interests for separating couples and their solicitors, prepared on joint or single-party instruction for the Melbourne and Dandenong registries and for settlements agreed without a hearing.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
In a Melbourne property settlement a business is valued as at the hearing or settlement date, on the basis the solicitors instruct. The valuer normalises owner pay, private spending and related-party dealings, capitalises maintainable earnings, tests the result against sales evidence and net assets, and separates goodwill a buyer would pay for from goodwill personal to the spouse.
Most Melbourne property pools contain a house, superannuation and, where one spouse runs a business, an asset that has no price until somebody puts one on it. The house can be checked against sales in the same street. A dental practice in Box Hill, a plumbing business in Werribee, a consultancy on Collins Street or a cafe in Fitzroy has no such reference, and each spouse tends to arrive with a figure that suits their side of the argument.
Section 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 (section 90SM for de facto couples) requires the Court to identify the property of the parties and its value before it weighs contributions, future needs and whether the proposed orders are just and equitable. Everything downstream depends on that first step. If the business is overstated, the spouse who keeps it pays out on value that does not exist; if it is understated, the other spouse gives up a share of something real.
The owning spouse also carries a disclosure risk. Both parties are bound to full and frank disclosure, and a set of accounts that understates profit, or a slow response to a request for records, is easily read as concealment. A valuation obtained early from a valuer with no connection to either side gives both solicitors a common starting point and, in our experience, is often the document that moves a matter from correspondence to a signed agreement.
We prepare single expert reports on joint instruction, shadow expert reviews for one party's solicitors and critiques of reports written by others, for matters listed in the Melbourne and Dandenong registries of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia and for the larger number of separations that settle by consent orders or a binding financial agreement without a hearing.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Family Law Act does not fix a valuation standard. The basis of value, whether market value or value to the owner, is a matter your solicitor instructs, and the valuer applies it consistently, showing the alternative figure wherever the choice of basis moves the result materially.
Where nobody intends to sell, the Court usually asks what the interest is worth to the party retaining it rather than what a stranger would pay. That basis can hold value a buyer would discount, such as dependence on the owner, and it can ignore a minority discount a buyer would insist on. The report names the basis used and shows the market value figure alongside it when the two diverge.
The pool is valued as it stands when orders are made or the agreement is signed. A Werribee plumbing business that has doubled since separation is valued at its current size; whether that growth was one party's effort after the relationship ended is a contribution argument for the solicitors, and a second valuation at the separation date can give them the figures to run it.
The Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia expects the parties to appoint a single expert whose overriding duty is to the Court. Either side can still retain a shadow expert to test that report, draft questions for the single expert and advise on settlement strategy. That advisory work is usually privileged and is rarely filed.
If a party withholds bank statements, ledgers or tax returns, the valuer does not guess in that party's favour. The report records what was asked for, what arrived and how the missing material affects the conclusion, which leaves the Court free to draw an adverse inference and usually prompts the documents to appear.
A common flaw is to capitalise a practitioner's income as goodwill and then count the same income again as earning capacity when the future needs of each party are weighed. If the income depends on the individual, most of it is not transferable and does not belong in the asset pool. Our reports state how much of the earnings would survive a change of owner, so the solicitors and the Court can place the balance where it belongs.
The income approach, through capitalisation of future maintainable earnings, leads for most trading businesses and practices. We take three to five years of results, normalise them, form a view of the earnings the business can hold, and apply a multiple or capitalisation rate that prices the risk attached to those earnings. This is how an informed buyer would look at the business, and the income approach is the framework family lawyers and the Court are used to testing.
A discounted cash flow takes over where a credible forecast exists and the earnings pattern is shifting, for example a Box Hill dental practice that has just added a second surgery, or a contractor whose largest customer has just left. The asset approach sets the floor and leads for entities that mostly hold property or investments. The market approach checks the answer against practice sales and industry benchmarks; a per-chair figure for dentists or a percentage of fees for accountants is a sense check, never the method.
Two judgement calls settle most of these matters. Goodwill first: what share of the earnings would follow the business to a new owner, and what share belongs to the spouse personally through skill, reputation and referral relationships. A sole practitioner with a large income can own very little that would transfer. Control second: a spouse who holds a minority parcel but in practice runs the company and sets the dividend policy should not receive a formula minority discount, and the report reasons from what actually happens rather than from the share register.
A shadow expert reads for these first, and a good cross-examiner will find them if the shadow expert has not.
Family law reports are read by the other party's solicitors, often by a shadow expert and sometimes by a judge, so the depth of the report has to survive that audience. The Indicative report has a narrower role: a private early read of the likely range for one spouse who is deciding whether to push for an early settlement or prepare for a contested hearing.
Every report records the instructions, the basis of value, the valuation date, the documents reviewed and the assumptions made. Each normalisation is itemised with its reason and its evidence. The choice of leading method is explained, the cross-checks are shown, goodwill and control are addressed in their own sections, and any limitation caused by incomplete disclosure is stated where a reader will notice it. The format follows the Court's expert evidence rules, including the expert's overriding duty to the Court.
The certified valuer who signs the report takes part in conferences of experts, contributes to joint expert reports, answers written questions from either party through the proper channel and gives evidence, including concurrent evidence with the other expert, when the matter requires it. A valuation whose author will not stand behind it in the witness box is of little use to either spouse, and we do not issue one.
Which assumption in this report would the other side's expert go after first, and how does the report answer it? If your valuer cannot tell you that before the report is filed in the Melbourne or Dandenong registry, you will learn the answer under cross-examination, which is the most expensive place to find it.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.