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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Dated, reasoned values for the fund assets that have no quoted price, prepared for Melbourne trustees and the auditor who has to sign off on them: shares in the family company, units in a related trust, business premises leased back to the members, and loans.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
Trustees of a self managed super fund must state every asset at market value at 30 June and hold objective, supportable evidence for each figure. Where an asset has no quoted price, such as private company shares, related trust units, leased business premises or a loan, that evidence is a dated valuation from someone independent of the fund.
An SMSF auditor signs off on two things each year: that the financial statements are right and that the fund has kept to the superannuation law. Both depend on asset values. For a fund holding a share portfolio and a term deposit, checking them means reading statements. For a fund holding part of the family's business, the auditor has to decide whether the figure in the accounts is a market value or a hopeful estimate, and the duty to prove which falls on the trustees.
Melbourne funds hold a familiar set of hard-to-value assets. A warehouse in Dandenong South or Campbellfield leased to the members' manufacturing or distribution company. Consulting suites near the Heidelberg or Clayton health precincts let to the members' practice. A minority shareholding in a Cremorne or Richmond services business the family started. Units in a trust that owns a shopfront in Box Hill. A loan to a relative's company. Each one needs a method, evidence and a date that suits the reason the value is wanted.
The figure also does more work than most trustees realise. It feeds each member's total superannuation balance, which governs contribution caps and Division 296; the transfer balance credit when a retirement phase pension begins; the minimum drawdown; and the in-house asset test with its 5 per cent limit. A related-party price that is not a market price can also bring the non-arm's length income rules into play, taxing the fund's income at the top rate.
We value the unlisted assets SMSF auditors question most, dated to the event that requires the value. The trustees make the decisions, your accountant prepares the accounts and the auditor applies the law; our part is a figure, with its working shown, that each of them can rely on.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Under regulation 8.02B of the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Regulations 1994, an SMSF prepares its financial statements with assets at market value. The ATO's published guidance on valuing SMSF assets describes what trustees should hold: evidence that is objective and supportable, prepared by someone with suitable skill, and updated when circumstances change. A full formal valuation is not required for every asset every year; between valuations, a reasoned review showing that nothing material has moved can be enough.
The annual accounts state each asset at its market value at the end of the financial year. A figure rolled forward unchanged with nothing on file to show it was reviewed invites questions, and an auditor left unsatisfied on a material asset must qualify the audit report and may have to notify the ATO.
The asset values on the commencement day set the credit to the member's transfer balance account and the starting point for the minimum annual payment. Neither is easily corrected once reported, so a valuation dated to that day is the careful course for any unlisted asset supporting the pension.
A fund may buy only certain assets from a related party, business real property among them, and only at market value; a sale to a related party must be on arm's length terms. Moving a Dandenong South factory into the fund, or selling private company shares out of it, needs a valuation dated to the transaction to show the price was right.
Rollovers and benefit payments, a move between accumulation and retirement phase, winding up the fund, and anything that could shift a value materially between balance dates: an anchor tenant leaving a retail strip, the investee company losing its main contract, or the death of a member.
Division 296 applies an additional tax to earnings on the part of a member's total superannuation balance above its threshold, and 30 June 2026 is the first date those balances are measured. A fund that held property, private company shares or unlisted units on that day needs a market value for each of them as at 30 June 2026, whether or not one was obtained at the time. A valuation prepared now can speak to that date, using only information that was known or knowable then. The same figure may matter again if the fund's adviser recommends resetting the cost base of fund assets to their 30 June 2026 value. The adviser confirms the thresholds, the rates and any election for each member; we supply the values.
Auditors begin by asking whether the method suits the asset, so the report begins there too. A holding company with nothing but cash and listed investments can be valued on its net assets. A trading company cannot, because its balance sheet leaves out the goodwill that its earnings show a buyer would pay for.
Shares in a private company or units in a trading trust are valued under the income approach: maintainable earnings after normalisation, capitalised at a rate that reflects their risk, cross-checked against sales evidence, with net assets as the floor. If the fund holds less than control, the report works through whether a discount for lack of control or marketability is warranted on the facts, such as the shareholders' agreement and the dividend record, and states the answer with its reasons. A discount taken out of habit fails review as surely as one overlooked.
Business real property let to the members' business needs a capital value and a market rent, and the rent is the figure most often left without support. Around the industrial belts of Dandenong South, Laverton North and Campbellfield, and the medical precincts of Heidelberg and Clayton, there is usually enough leasing evidence to test it; where the capital value is material, a registered property valuer's report supports it. Units in a related unit trust are valued together with the trust's underlying property at one date, with a check that the trust still meets the conditions that keep the units outside the in-house asset limit. Loans are valued on the borrower's capacity to repay, the security held and whether the terms are commercial. Collectables have their own regulation, including the need for a qualified independent valuer when one is sold to a related party.
Auditors raise these points year after year. Each can end in a qualified audit or a contravention report, and each is avoided by using a method that suits the asset at the right date.
The reader of an SMSF valuation is the fund's auditor and, now and then, the ATO. A certified Summary report usually meets that need, because it sets out the method, the evidence and the reasoning without the auditor needing our working papers. The Detailed report is worth its extra depth when a related-party transaction is large, a pension is commencing on a substantial unlisted asset, or a member's 30 June 2026 Division 296 position depends on the figure.
Each report opens with the trigger, the valuation date, the standard of value and the documents relied on, then values every asset by the method that suits it. A trading company comes with its normalisation schedule, maintainable earnings and capitalisation rate, each sourced. Leased premises come with the sales evidence and the rent evidence side by side. The reconciliation explains how the conclusion was reached, so the auditor can work through it unaided, though we are glad to take the call.
Every report is signed by a certified valuer with no interest in the fund, its members or the entities valued, who will answer the auditor's queries and defend the opinion if the ATO reviews the fund. Independence is most of what the auditor relies on, which is why a short letter from the fund's own accountant seldom closes the file. If the same asset is later contested, for example in a family provision claim under Part IV of the Administration and Probate Act 1958 (Vic) or a shareholder dispute in the Supreme Court of Victoria, the valuer who signed the SMSF report will explain how the figure was reached.
Pick the largest asset in the fund without a quoted price. If the auditor asked for its evidence tomorrow, would you produce a dated, reasoned report from someone with nothing riding on the figure, or a number copied from last year's accounts? If it is the second, start there.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.