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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 sits in the pool, we value it for the partner keeping it, the partner leaving it and the lawyers on both sides, whether the matter settles by consent orders or runs to a hearing in the Adelaide registry.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
In an Adelaide 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, tests the result against sales and net assets, and isolates goodwill personal to the spouse.
Most Adelaide property pools are easy to price until the business is reached. The family home in Burnside or Unley can be set against recent sales in the same street, and superannuation balances arrive on a statement. A dental practice on The Parade at Norwood, an electrical contractor working out of Mawson Lakes, a Kent Town engineering consultancy or a Jetty Road cafe in Glenelg has no published price, so each partner tends to bring the figure that helps their side.
Under section 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 the Court's first task is to identify the property and work out what it is worth, before it turns to contributions and to each party's current and future circumstances. De facto couples are dealt with under section 90SM, and because South Australia referred its de facto property powers to the Commonwealth, separating de facto partners here use the same Court and the same Act as married couples. A business figure set too high leaves the keeping partner paying out on value that does not exist; one set too low hands the other partner less than their share.
The owner carries a second risk. Each party must give full and frank disclosure, and thin accounts, a sudden dip in profit or a slow answer to a document request are readily read as hiding something. A figure from a valuer who acts for neither side puts both lawyers on the same footing early, and in our experience that is often the point at which a long exchange of letters becomes a set of 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 metropolitan Adelaide, from Elizabeth and Salisbury in the north to Marion in the south, and out to Mount Barker and the Adelaide Hills. Some matters are filed in the Adelaide registry of 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 does not prescribe a valuation standard. Your lawyer instructs whether the business is valued at market value or at its value to the partner who keeps it; the valuer applies that basis from start to finish and shows the other figure wherever the difference is material.
Where no sale is planned, the instruction is often to value the interest for the partner retaining it rather than at what a stranger would offer. On that basis dependence on the owner may cost less, and a minority discount a purchaser would insist on may fall away. The report states the basis it used and sets the market value alongside it whenever the two diverge.
The Court divides the pool as it exists at the time of orders or agreement. If a Lonsdale fabrication business has grown sharply since the parties parted, it is valued at its present size. Whether that growth came from 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, and the Adelaide registry works to the same national rules. 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 rarely filed.
Where ledgers, bank statements or tax returns are held back, the valuer does not resolve the doubt in favour of the party withholding them. The report records what was sought, what was provided and how each gap bears on the figure, which gives the Court a basis for an adverse inference and usually prompts the documents to appear.
A common error is to treat a practitioner's earnings as goodwill in the business and then count those same earnings a second time as earning capacity when the Court looks at each party's future. Where clients follow the person, most of that income would not pass to a buyer and does not belong in the pool. Our reports show how much of the profit would survive a change of owner, so the rest can be dealt with in the right part of the case.
For most operating businesses and professional practices, the lead method is the income approach, capitalising future maintainable earnings. We normalise three to five years of results, settle the level of earnings the business can sustain, and apply a capitalisation rate or multiple that reflects the risk attached to those earnings. That is how an informed buyer looks at a business, and the income approach is the framework family lawyers and the Court expect to test.
Where a dependable forecast exists and earnings are on the move, a discounted cash flow can lead instead: a specialist group near Flinders Medical Centre at Bedford Park that has just added consulting rooms, say, or a Wingfield contractor that has lost its largest customer. The asset approach sets the floor and leads where the entity mostly holds property or investments, such as a family trust that owns a Mile End warehouse. The market approach tests the outcome against practice sales and industry benchmarks; a per-chair figure for a dental practice or a multiple of recurring fees for an accounting firm is a check, never the method itself.
Most of these cases turn on two judgements. One is goodwill: what share of the earnings would go with the business to a new owner, and what share stays with the partner through their skill, reputation, referral relationships or a licence that rests on them, as with a building company whose licence under the Building Work Contractors Act 1995 (SA) relies on that partner's qualifications. The other is control: a spouse with a minority shareholding who in practice runs the company and decides its dividends should not receive an automatic minority discount, so the report works from how the company actually operates, not from the share register.
These are the first things a shadow expert checks, and whatever the shadow expert misses, a well-prepared cross-examiner will usually find.
A family law report is read by the other side's lawyers, frequently by a shadow expert and, if the matter does not resolve, by a judge in the Adelaide registry, so its depth must match that audience. The Indicative report has a smaller role: a private early read of the likely range for one partner weighing up whether to settle at mediation or prepare for a contested hearing.
Each report sets out the instructions, the basis and date of valuation, the documents reviewed and the assumptions relied on. Every normalisation is listed with its reason and the evidence behind it. The report explains why the lead method was chosen, shows the cross-checks, deals with goodwill and control in their own sections, and places any limitation caused by incomplete disclosure where no reader can miss it. It is written to the expert evidence requirements of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, under which the expert's overriding duty is to the Court.
The certified valuer who signs it attends conferences of experts, contributes to joint reports, responds to written questions from either party through the proper channel, and gives evidence, including concurrently with the other expert, when an Adelaide registry matter calls for it. A report its author will not defend under oath helps neither partner, and we do not issue one.
Which assumption will the other expert go after first, and where does the report deal with it? If your valuer cannot answer that before the report reaches the Adelaide registry, the answer will come out in cross-examination, which is the most expensive place to hear it.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.