How Are Businesses Valued in Australian Family Law Proceedings?

Valuation is evidence, not the statutory exercise

The Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) does not prescribe any valuation method. Since the property-law amendments that commenced on 10 June 2025, section 79 — and its de facto equivalent, section 90SM — requires the court, in deciding whether to alter property interests, to identify the parties’ existing legal and equitable rights and interests in property and their existing liabilities, and to consider contributions and the parties’ current and future circumstances. Attributing a value to a business interest is a finding of fact the court makes on the evidence before it as part of that exercise.

That has three practical consequences. First, a valuation report is an input, not an outcome: the court weighs it alongside all the other evidence and is not bound to adopt it. Second, values only need to be proved to the extent they are genuinely disputed — the Rules state expressly that expert evidence should be obtained only in relation to a significant issue in dispute, and parties remain free to agree values. Third, because valuation sits inside the wider settlement framework, the number is only ever one step in the process described in our guides to the four-step property settlement process and property settlement after separation.

The entity, the business and your actual interest

“What is the business worth?” is usually the wrong first question. The right first question is: what exactly is being valued? A business is operated through a legal structure, and the thing a party owns is an interest in that structure — not the business in the abstract.

• Sole trader. There is no separate entity. The party personally owns the business assets — plant, stock, debtors, goodwill — and personally owes the business debts. The valuation is of those assets and liabilities together with any goodwill, and the resulting figures sit directly on the party’s side of the balance sheet.
• Partnership. The party owns a fractional interest in the partnership, governed by the partnership agreement. Provisions in the agreement about how a departing partner’s share is calculated are relevant evidence whose weight depends on the circumstances — including whether the formula genuinely governs a realistic exit — rather than a figure the court is bound to adopt.
• Company. The party owns shares. The company owns the business. Three different numbers matter: enterprise value (the value of the operating business itself, including goodwill and operating assets, before financing), equity value (enterprise value plus surplus assets, minus interest-bearing debt — what 100% of the shares are worth) and the value of the parcel actually held (which may or may not equal a pro-rata slice of equity value). These are not interchangeable, and valuation disputes can arise because the parties or experts are referring to different figures.
• Trusts. Units in a unit trust are valued much like shares. An interest in a discretionary trust is different in kind — a mere object of the trustee’s discretion holds no proprietary entitlement, and whether trust assets are treated as a party’s property typically turns on control and entitlement. That analysis is covered in how family trusts are treated in divorce; where trust assets include a trading business, the valuation mechanics in this article still apply to that business.

The valuation date

The court is generally concerned with the value of the parties’ interests at the time it deals with the matter — the date of the hearing or of the settlement — not the date of separation. A business that has grown or declined since separation is valued as it now stands, and the reasons for the change (one party’s post-separation effort, market conditions, or conduct that diminished the asset) are dealt with through the contribution and adjustment analysis rather than by picking a historical date.

The practical corollary is that valuations go stale. A report prepared eighteen months before trial, on financial statements that are now two years old, invites an update — and updates cost money. Timing the valuation sensibly, and agreeing early what financial periods it will cover, is one of the cheapest pieces of case management available.

Bases and concepts of value

Before any method is chosen, the valuer must fix the basis of value — the question the number is answering. The same business can carry several defensible values at the same date depending on the basis adopted, which is why a report that does not state its basis explicitly is difficult to test. The bases you are most likely to encounter are:

• Book value and written-down value. Historical cost less accumulated depreciation or amortisation, as recorded in the accounts. Useful as a starting record, but it reflects accounting and tax policy rather than worth, and it is almost never the value used for a property settlement.
• Going-concern value. The value of the business as a continuing operation, assuming it keeps trading and generating profits. This is the default assumption for most family-law valuations of an operating business.
• Orderly realisation and liquidation value. What the assets would realise if sold, respectively over a reasonable period or on a wind-up. Relevant where the business is not viable as a going concern, or where the entity is really an asset-holding vehicle.
• Forced-sale (fire-sale) value. What would be realised on a distressed, time-pressured sale. It is rarely the right basis in a property settlement, because separation does not of itself compel an immediate sale — but parties sometimes argue for it, and it should be resisted unless the evidence genuinely establishes urgency.
• Fair market value. The conventional starting point. Discussed in the next section.
• Fair value. A related but distinct concept used mainly in commercial disputes such as shareholder oppression and buy-out clauses, where the identity of the parties matters and minority discounts are often expressly excluded. Do not assume it means the same thing as fair market value.
• Special, strategic or investment value. What a particular buyer would pay because of synergies unavailable to anyone else — integration, cost savings, access to a customer base or technology. It is a real commercial concept, but it depends on proving that such a buyer exists and would pay.
• Intrinsic value. A fundamentals-based estimate of worth, used more in investment analysis than in litigation.
• Value to the owner. What the interest is worth to the person who holds it and will continue to hold it. It is discussed in the next section.

The practical point for a separating business owner: if the two sides are producing very different numbers, the first question is not “whose arithmetic is wrong?” but “are these reports even answering the same question?”

Fair market value vs value to the owner

Fair market value is the conventional standard: the price that would be negotiated between a willing but not anxious buyer and a willing but not anxious seller, each acting at arm’s length and with reasonable knowledge of the relevant facts. It assumes a hypothetical transaction, and for many private businesses that assumption is realistic enough.

But many family-law businesses would never actually be sold — a one-practitioner professional practice, a business inseparable from its owner’s licence or relationships, a small company whose only realistic “buyer” is the spouse who already runs it. For these, the courts have long recognised a value to the owner approach: what is the interest worth to the party who holds it, given that they will keep it and keep drawing its benefits? In Scott & Scott [2006] FamCA 1379 the court held, on a line of earlier authority, that a trial judge who preferred a value-to-owner assessment of a medical practice over the competing valuation had made a reasoned exercise of discretion that was open on the evidence. It is not authority that value to the owner must be used for professional practices.

Two cautions. Value to the owner is a context-sensitive judicial approach, not a formula: in practice the valuer usually applies the same techniques with different assumptions (no forced sale, no marketability discount, benefits assessed in the owner’s hands). And it is not automatic — where the evidence does not establish real ongoing benefits to the owner, or a market genuinely exists, the approach may be rejected, and in some cases value to the owner and market value simply coincide.

The principal valuation methods

Australian valuation practice recognises a small number of core methodologies. In Wilde & Wilde [2007] FamCA 1044 at [154] the court referred to the five basic valuation methodologies described in Lonergan’s The Valuation of Businesses, Shares and Other Equity: discounted cash flow; capitalisation of future maintainable earnings (or profits); notional realisation of assets; net tangible assets on a going-concern basis; and capitalisation of future maintainable dividends. That is a description of accepted practice, not an exhaustive judicial list. Industry rules of thumb sit alongside these as a cross-check rather than a methodology in their own right. Valuers select what fits the business; courts assess whether the selection and its inputs are sound.

How the method is selected — and tested

Method selection is not a matter of taste. It follows from the character of the business: whether it earns more than a fair return on its tangible assets, whether its earnings are stable enough to be described as maintainable, whether credible forecasts exist, whether the interest being valued carries control, and whether the business will continue or be wound up. A profitable, stable trading business will normally be valued on capitalised future maintainable earnings with a net-asset figure as a floor; a break-even asset-heavy business on net tangible assets; a company holding passive investments on notional realisation.

Critically, the choice is not the expert’s to make finally. In Georgeson and Georgeson [1995] FamCA 62, quoted with approval in Wilde, the court held that while an expert may suggest an approach as appropriate, before accepting it the court must come to its own conclusions as to whether that approach is appropriate in the circumstances. Expert evidence assists the court to form an independent judgment on valuation; it does not displace it. That is the doctrinal foundation for every submission that a single expert has applied the wrong method to this business.

Two selection errors recur in family-law reports. The first is applying a capitalisation of earnings and then describing the result as the value of goodwill, when it is the value of the whole business (goodwill being the residual above net tangible assets). The second is valuing on a basis inconsistent with what will actually happen — a forced-realisation figure for a business the owner will plainly keep and keep running, or a full going-concern figure for an enterprise that cannot survive the separation.

A worked capitalisation example

The figures below are illustrative only, but they show how the pieces fit together for a company running a trading business, where one spouse holds 50% of the shares and works full-time in the business.

Every contested number in that table is a judgment call: the choice of earnings base (EBIT versus EBITDA versus after-tax profit), the years averaged and any weighting between them, the market salary, each add-back, and above all the multiple. Multiples for private businesses reflect risk — size, customer concentration, supplier dependence, key-person reliance, industry outlook and the quality of earnings — and moving the multiple from 3.0 to 2.5 in the example strips $120,000 from enterprise value. When valuations are challenged, it is almost always these inputs, not the arithmetic, that are attacked.

Normalising earnings: add-backs and adjustments

Private business accounts are prepared for tax efficiency, not to showcase profitability. Normalisation reverses that, restating the accounts to show what the business truly earns. Common adjustments include:

• Owner remuneration to market. The single most important adjustment. The owner’s actual salary, superannuation, bonuses and benefits are replaced with the market cost of employing someone to perform the same role. Underpaid owners produce inflated profits; overpaid owners depress them.
• Private and discretionary expenses. Vehicles, travel, entertainment, home costs and family phone plans run through the business are added back.
• One-off and abnormal items. Insurance recoveries, litigation costs, government support payments, extraordinary write-offs and profits or losses on asset sales are excluded from maintainable earnings.
• Related-party arrangements. Rent paid to a family-owned entity above or below market, management fees to associated companies and interest on related-party loans are restated to arm’s-length terms.
• Non-recurring revenue. A contract that will not be renewed, or a customer already lost, should not be projected forward.

Normalisation cuts both ways, and a competent valuer will make adjustments that favour each side where the records justify them. It also depends entirely on candour: add-backs can only be identified from records that are actually produced, which is why the disclosure obligations discussed below carry so much weight in valuation disputes.

Goodwill, personal goodwill and personal exertion

Goodwill is the value of a business beyond its identifiable net assets — the propensity of customers to keep coming back. Valuers commonly distinguish commercial goodwill, which attaches to the business itself (brand, location, systems, workforce, contracts) and would survive a change of owner, from personal goodwill, which attaches to an individual — their skill, licence, reputation and relationships — and cannot be sold in any real sense.

The family law significance is this: a party’s earning capacity is not property, and a valuation must not simply capitalise the owner’s future personal labour and present it as divisible business value. The disciplined approach is to charge the business a full market salary for the owner’s role and ask what maintainable profit remains. If the answer is nothing — the “business” is really a job — then beyond its net tangible assets there may be little or no goodwill value to divide, and the owner’s income is instead relevant to the court’s assessment of the parties’ future circumstances. If a genuine surplus remains after market remuneration, that surplus can support goodwill value even in an owner-dependent business — which is precisely the reasoning that underpins value-to-owner assessments of professional practices in cases such as Scott & Scott.

From enterprise value to the value of your interest

Capitalising earnings values the operating business. Getting from there to the value of what a party actually owns requires several further steps, each of which is a recurring source of dispute.

• Working capital. A normal level of debtors, stock and creditors is part of the operating business and is already reflected in enterprise value. Cash or investments beyond what the business needs to trade are not.
• Surplus assets. Assets the business does not need — investment properties, share portfolios, excess cash and other assets recorded in the accounts that have no operating role — are added at their own values on top of enterprise value.
• Interest-bearing debt. Bank loans and other financing are deducted to move from enterprise value to equity value.
• Shareholder and related-party loans. These need careful, direction-by-direction treatment. A loan the company owes the owner is an asset in the owner’s hands and a liability of the company. A loan the owner owes the company — common where drawings have been booked as loans — is an asset of the company and a personal liability of the owner, and under Division 7A of the income tax legislation such loans can be treated as unfranked deemed dividends unless they are placed on complying terms. Ignoring these accounts, or recognising the loan on only one side — in the entity but not against the individual, or the reverse — is one of the most common technical errors in family law balance sheets. Specific tax advice is essential.
• Minority and marketability discounts. On an open market, a parcel of shares that cannot control the company, and cannot easily be sold, is worth less than its pro-rata share of equity value. In family law the discounts are not applied mechanically: where the spouses together control the entity, where the party retaining the parcel effectively controls the business, or where a value-to-owner approach is taken, the hypothetical outside buyer on which the discounts rest does not exist, and courts are often unpersuaded that a discount reflects reality. A genuine minority position alongside unrelated arm’s-length shareholders is a different matter.

Latent tax and transaction costs

A business interest carries embedded tax: if it were sold, capital gains tax would ordinarily be payable. Whether that latent tax is deducted from the value in the balance sheet is governed by the principles the Full Court set out in Rosati & Rosati [1998] FamCA 38, which remain the touchstone:

1. Whether and how to allow for CGT depends on the circumstances of the case, including the valuation method, the likelihood of a sale and the time when it is likely to occur.
2. An allowance is generally made where the court orders a sale, where a sale is inevitable or probable in the near future, or where the asset was acquired as an investment vehicle to be realised.
3. Where a sale is merely possible, no dollar deduction is usually made, but the risk of tax can be taken into account as a relevant circumstance in the overall assessment.
4. Special circumstances may nonetheless justify an allowance, at the full rate or a discounted rate, even where a sale is not imminent.

Related points are easy to miss. Transfers of assets between spouses (or from a company or trust to a spouse) under court orders or a binding financial agreement may qualify for CGT rollover relief, which does not eliminate the tax but defers it and passes the embedded liability to the recipient — so an asset received “tax-free” may carry a significant future tax bill. Realisation costs, such as agents’ and legal fees on a sale the orders require, follow similar logic to latent tax. These issues are covered in more depth in tax and CGT in divorce and property settlements. Family lawyers identify these issues; quantifying them is accounting and tax work, and legal advice is not a substitute for valuation or tax advice.

The single expert process

Expert valuation evidence in the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia is governed by Part 7.1 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021. The Rules’ stated purposes include ensuring that expert evidence is obtained only on significant issues genuinely in dispute and that, if practicable and without compromising the interests of justice, expert evidence on an issue is given by a single expert witness. A single expert is therefore the strong default for business valuation — but it is a preference, not an invariable requirement.

In outline, the process runs as follows:

• Appointment. The parties may jointly appoint a single expert by agreement (rule 7.03), or the court may order the appointment and make directions about it (rules 7.04 and 7.05), including approving an agreed letter of instruction. The expert must be instructed in writing (rule 7.13).
• Fees. Unless the parties agree or the court orders otherwise, the parties are equally liable for the single expert’s reasonable fees and expenses of preparing the report, and the expert need not start work until the fees are paid or secured (rule 7.06). How those costs are ultimately borne can be adjusted by agreement or court order; there is no automatic rule about how they fall in the final settlement.
• The report. The single expert prepares a written report and provides it to each party at the same time (rule 7.07). The expert’s paramount duty is to the court, not to any party (rule 7.18), and the report must comply with the prescribed form and content requirements (rules 7.21 and 7.22).
• Clarification. A dissatisfied party’s first tools are a conference with the expert and one set of written questions. The parties may agree to confer with the expert within 21 days of receiving the report, and the court may order a conference if they do not agree (rule 7.25). Written questions must be put once only, within 7 days after a conference or within 21 days of receiving the report if there is no conference, and may only seek to clarify the report — they must not be vexatious, oppressive or require unreasonable work (rule 7.26). The expert must answer within 21 days of the later of receiving the question and the fees for answering being paid or secured (rule 7.27), and the party asking bears the cost of the answers (rule 7.28).
• Cross-examination. A party who wants to cross-examine the single expert must give the expert at least 14 days’ written notice before the hearing, and ordinarily pays the expert’s reasonable fees of attending (rule 7.09).
• Other experts. Evidence from any expert other than the single expert requires the court’s permission, and where a single expert has already been appointed on the issue a further gateway applies — see Challenging a business valuation below.

A jointly retained single expert should be distinguished from a shadow expert: an accountant or valuer a party privately engages to advise them and their lawyers — to explain the report, test its assumptions, draft rule 7.26 questions and prepare cross-examination. A shadow expert working purely in that advisory role is not giving evidence, so the permission regime is not engaged; permission is required only if the party seeks to rely on that expert’s opinion as evidence.

Documents the valuer will need

Parties to financial proceedings owe a duty of full and frank disclosure of their financial circumstances — stated in section 71B of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) for married couples and section 90RI for de facto couples, and spelt out in rule 6.06 of the Rules, which expressly extends to interests in, and income of, entities and trusts a party owns or controls. The valuer’s document request typically includes:

• financial statements and income tax returns for each relevant entity, usually for the last three to five years;
• interim management accounts for the current financial year, and business activity statements;
• aged debtor and creditor listings and stock records;
• details of owner and related-party remuneration, superannuation and benefits;
• loan agreements, bank facility documents, leases and equipment finance;
• shareholder agreements, partnership agreements, trust deeds and company constitutions;
• customer and supplier contracts, franchise agreements and any licences the business depends on;
• budgets or forecasts if they exist, and any prior valuations, sale offers or expressions of interest.

Where one spouse has had no involvement in the business, the disclosure process is their protection: the records go to an independent expert whose duty runs to the court. Concerns about records that appear incomplete or contrived are addressed in financial disclosure and hidden assets in divorce.

Incomplete or unreliable records

Valuers can only work with what they are given. Where records are missing, late or internally inconsistent, the expert will typically state the limitation, identify the assumptions adopted in place of the missing information, and if necessary qualify the opinion. A qualified valuation is still evidence, and courts regularly act on the best evidence available rather than allowing the party who controls the records to benefit from the gaps they created.

For the party withholding material, the risks compound: non-disclosure may attract costs consequences under the court’s costs power, may lead the court to approach that party’s evidence about value with scepticism, and in some cases may support an application under section 79A of the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) to set aside or vary orders later. For the party facing an information vacuum, the practical sequence is disclosure requests first, then targeted questions to the expert about how the gaps affect the opinion, and cross-examination as the backstop.

Challenging a business valuation

A valuation is tested on two fronts: the substance of the report and the procedure available to put that substance to the expert. Take the substance first. The areas that repay close reading are:

• The basis and method. Is the basis of value stated, and is it the right one? Is the methodology appropriate to this business, remembering that the court forms its own view on that question?
• The earnings base. Which years were used, why, and were abnormal years included or excluded consistently? A maintainable earnings figure is an opinion about future performance, expressed using historical figures, and it is one of the two most contested numbers in any report.
• The capitalisation rate or multiple. The other contested number. What evidence supports it — transaction databases, listed-company comparables, industry surveys? Are the comparables genuinely comparable in size, sector and risk? Was any risk adjustment double-counted in both earnings and the multiple?
• The market-salary assumption. Test the notional remuneration deducted for the owner’s work against real market data. A small change here moves the valuation by a multiple of that change.
• Add-backs and normalisations. Each one should be itemised, sourced to a document and explained. Unsupported add-backs are among the most readily tested items.
• Surplus assets, working capital, debt and loans. Has surplus cash or a non-trading property been double-counted, or omitted? Is the working-capital allowance reasonable? Are shareholder and related-party loans treated consistently on both sides of the bridge from enterprise value to the value of the interest?
• Discounts. If a minority or marketability discount has been applied, is it consistent with the basis of value adopted and with the reality that this interest is not going to market?
• Instructions, assumptions and limitations. Read the letter of instruction and the assumptions schedule before the conclusion. Reports are frequently vulnerable because the instructions were incomplete or an assumption was never verified.
• Compliance with the expert’s duty. Rule 7.18 makes the expert’s duty to the court paramount and overriding any duty to a party. A report that argues a case rather than reasoning to a conclusion invites that point.
• Arithmetic and internal consistency. Easy to overlook, and worth checking: totals, cross-references between schedules, and whether the figures in the narrative match the figures in the appendices.

Procedurally, the Rules provide an escalating pathway:

• Shadow expert review first. Before anything is filed, have your own accountant read the report and the source material and identify which assumptions are genuinely wrong rather than merely unwelcome. This step decides whether the rest of the pathway is worth its cost.
• Questions and conference. Ask the single expert one set of written clarifying questions (rule 7.26), to which the expert must respond (rule 7.27), and where useful convene a conference with the expert (rule 7.25). Many disputes resolve when a key assumption is corrected at this stage — and the answers are often the most cost-effective evidence you will obtain.
• Another expert, with permission. Evidence from any expert other than the single expert requires permission under rules 7.10 and 7.11, supported by affidavit evidence addressing the prescribed matters, and the court weighs the purposes of Part 7.1, cost, delay, complexity and whether a single expert should give the evidence. Where a single expert has already been appointed on the issue, rule 7.08 adds a further gateway: a substantial body of contrary opinion that is or may be necessary for determining the issue, another expert who knows of matters the single expert does not, or another special reason. Both permissions apply.
• Cross-examination. With 14 days’ written notice, the single expert can be required to attend for cross-examination (rule 7.09). The court may limit its nature and length, and the requesting party ordinarily bears the expert’s attendance costs.
• Conferences between experts and evidence at trial. Where two or more parties intend to adduce evidence from different experts on the same or a similar question, rules 7.30 to 7.32 require the experts to confer at least 28 days before trial and give the court broad powers over how their evidence is given at trial, including concurrently. Narrowing the dispute to two or three identified assumptions is usually a better outcome than two irreconcilable reports.

Special cases

Professional practices. Medical, dental, legal, accounting and allied practices are the classic value-to-owner territory: income depends heavily on the practitioner, ownership may be restricted by professional rules, and there is often no real market for the practice as a whole. The disciplined questions are whether maintainable profits exceed market remuneration for the practitioner, and what part of any goodwill is truly transferable.

Sole traders. The valuation is of the business assets and any goodwill in the individual’s hands. Where the enterprise is in substance a personal services job, its value may not extend far beyond plant, equipment and work in progress.

Partnerships. The partnership agreement’s exit formula is relevant evidence rather than an answer: its weight depends on the circumstances, including whether the formula genuinely governs a realistic exit, and a clause fixing departing partners’ entitlements at (say) capital account balances is not a figure the court is bound to adopt.

Interests held through discretionary trusts. The business may be valued conventionally, but who “owns” that value depends on the control analysis discussed in our family trusts guide. Valuation and characterisation are separate questions and should be kept separate in the evidence.

Start-ups and pre-profit ventures. With no maintainable earnings to capitalise, valuers fall back on net assets, recent capital-raising prices, or milestone-based approaches. Values are inherently uncertain and often modest relative to the founders’ hopes; overpaying to “buy out” speculative upside is a recognised settlement risk.

Franchises and licensed businesses. The franchise agreement or licence often controls transferability, term and renewal — all of which feed the multiple and, in some cases, whether there is saleable goodwill at all. For valuation issues in a commercial (sale and purchase) context, see our general business valuation guide.

What the valuation means for your settlement

The valuation report ordinarily provides important evidence of the value to be recorded in the family-law balance sheet, but the parties may agree another value and the court is not bound to accept the expert’s conclusion; the settlement decides what happens to that value. Often, the business-owning spouse seeks to retain the business and the other spouse is compensated with a larger share of other assets — the home, investments or superannuation (see superannuation splitting) — or with staged payments where the pool is illiquid. The higher the business value, the more balancing assets or payments are needed, which is why valuation inputs are fought so hard even when nobody intends to sell anything.

Strategy for owners — interim arrangements, funding a payout without breaking the business, restraints and risk protection — is covered in Can I Keep My Business After Separation? Whatever is agreed should be documented properly through consent orders or a binding financial agreement, not least because rollover relief and duty outcomes can depend on the form of the documentation.

Practical checklists

If you own or run the business:

• assemble complete financial records early — gaps in the records make the expert’s task harder and can weaken your position on value;
• keep trading normally; unusual transactions after separation will be scrutinised and can be adjusted for;
• get advice before restructuring, paying down related-party loans or changing your own remuneration;
• engage with the letter of instruction — the periods covered, the interest being valued and the assumptions to be adopted are negotiated, not automatic;
• consider a shadow expert for any substantial valuation, and obtain tax advice on latent CGT, Division 7A loans and rollover consequences before settling.

If your spouse owns or runs the business:

• press the disclosure duty — it extends to entities and trusts your spouse controls, not just personal accounts;
• do not treat the profit reported in the tax returns as maintainable earnings; valuation adjustments will usually be required;
• check which value is being quoted — enterprise value, equity value or the value of the actual parcel;
• ask for each discount and each add-back to be itemised, sourced to a document and explained;
• remember an asset taken subject to rollover carries its embedded tax with it — compare after-tax outcomes, not headline figures.

Conclusion

Business valuation in family law is a structured exercise built on contestable judgments: what the business truly earns, what an owner’s work is worth at market, what multiple the risk profile justifies, what the entity owes and is owed, and whether the value should be assessed for a hypothetical buyer or for the owner who will keep it. The court process channels those judgments through a single expert with a paramount duty to the court, and gives both parties disciplined tools to test the result. Parties are best placed when they understand the inputs, not just the output. Our family law team works alongside valuers, accountants and tax advisers on business valuation issues in property settlements — and knowing which questions to ask the expert is often what makes the difference between accepting a report and testing it properly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources and further reading

• Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) — current compilation, including sections 71B, 79, 90RI and 90SM
• Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021 — Part 7.1 (expert evidence and single expert witnesses) and rule 6.06 (duty of disclosure)
• Rosati & Rosati [1998] FamCA 38 — principles on allowing for capital gains tax in property proceedings
• Scott & Scott [2006] FamCA 1379 — holding that a value-to-owner assessment of a professional practice was open to the trial judge as an exercise of discretion
• Wilde & Wilde [2007] FamCA 1044 — referring to the valuation methodologies described in Lonergan, and the court’s task in choosing between competing valuations
• Georgeson and Georgeson [1995] FamCA 62 — the court must form its own conclusion on whether an expert’s valuation approach is appropriate

This article is general legal information about Australian law as at 4 September 2026. It is not legal, valuation or tax advice and does not take account of your circumstances. Legislation, court rules and case law change; obtain advice tailored to your situation before acting.