Business valuations in a family law property settlement: what to expect.

A business is often the largest single item in a property pool and the hardest to agree on. A house has comparable sales. A private company has one buyer, one owner, and two people who now disagree about almost everything. That is why the valuation, and the person who does it, tends to decide the settlement.

When a business has to be valued

Property settlements changed on 10 June 2025, when most of the Family Law Amendment Act 2024 commenced. The long-standing four-step approach is now written into the statute rather than left to case law, and section 79(3) directs the Court to identify the existing legal and equitable rights and interests in the property of the parties. The word "existing" matters: it narrows what goes into the pool.

An interest in a business is property. That includes shares in a private company, a partnership interest, units in a trust, and a sole trader operation with goodwill. If either party holds one and its value is not agreed, it has to be valued before contributions can be assessed or a division proposed.

Who does the valuing: the single expert

The most common misunderstanding is that each side engages its own valuer and the Court picks a number between them. That is not how the family law system is designed to work.

Under the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021, parties are to obtain expert evidence only on a significant issue in dispute, and where practicable that evidence is to come from a single expert witness. One valuer, instructed by both parties or appointed by the Court, produces one report that goes to everyone at the same time (rule 7.07).

This has a practical consequence that catches people out: once a single expert has been appointed, a party cannot simply commission a second valuation and tender it. Presenting another expert's report on the same issue requires the Court's permission. If you dislike the number, the ordinary path is written questions to the expert under rule 7.27, not a competing report.

What the expert is given

Rule 7.13 requires the parties to give a single expert an agreed statement of facts to work from. Where they cannot agree, each party provides its own statement of facts and the expert works from both.

This is where a great deal of value is won or lost, and it is a lawyer's task rather than a valuer's. The assumptions handed to the expert, the valuation date, whether a shareholding is treated as a controlling or minority interest, how owner remuneration is normalised: these are set in the instructions, and they move the answer more than the choice of valuer usually does.

What it costs

Fees for business valuation in Australia are not well published. Most forensic accounting and valuation practices quote on scope after reviewing the matter, and hourly billing remains common, which makes it difficult to know the likely cost before engaging. That opacity is itself the honest finding here: a reader cannot currently compare the market on price the way they can compare conveyancing.

A minority of firms publish fixed fees. Where they do, the published figures give at least a reference point for what a straightforward single-entity valuation costs against a contested one. As a guide, published fixed fees for signed valuation reports in Australia currently start in the low four figures for a single trading entity with clean financials, and rise into five figures for contested, retrospective or higher-value matters requiring fuller evidence.

Two cost drivers matter more than the headline fee. The first is scope: multiple entities, trust structures and retrospective dates each add work. The second is what happens after the report. Answering written questions under rule 7.27, attending a conclave with another expert, or giving evidence at a hearing is generally outside the fee for producing the report, and is quoted separately. Ask about that before you engage, not after.

Questions worth asking before appointment

1. Have you acted for either party before? Prior involvement with one side must be disclosed, and may make a valuer unsuitable as a single expert.
2. What is your fee, and what is excluded? Specifically: written questions, conclaves, affidavits, and court attendance.
3. What is the valuation date, and who set it? It should come from the instructions, not from the valuer's convenience.
4. Have you given evidence in the Federal Circuit and Family Court before? Producing a report and defending one under cross-examination are different skills.
5. What will you need from the business, and by when? Incomplete financial records are the most common cause of delay.
6. Is your fee contingent on anything? It should not be. A fee that varies with the concluded value is inconsistent with the independence the role requires.

Where valuers come from

Three groups do this work in Australia. National accounting and advisory firms run forensic divisions that handle large and complex matters. Specialist forensic accounting practices work almost exclusively in litigation and family law, and several publish substantial guidance on expert appointment, among them Delbridge Forensic Accounting and Hall Chadwick. Fixed-fee valuation firms are a newer, smaller group that publish prices and work mainly on compliance and transaction valuations, taking family law matters where scope allows.

How long it takes

Timing depends far more on the business than the valuer. Where financial statements, tax returns and management accounts are ready, a straightforward single-entity valuation is commonly a matter of weeks. Where records are incomplete, a trust structure has to be unpicked, or a retrospective date is involved, it takes considerably longer, and the delay usually sits with document production rather than analysis.

The sequence that causes least friction is: agree the valuation date and the assumptions first, appoint one expert, give them a complete document set at the outset, and reserve written questions for genuine ambiguities in the report.