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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Date-of-death and distribution values an executor can rely on, prepared before the estate is divided rather than reconstructed after a beneficiary objects.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
A deceased estate valuation in Sydney fixes the market value of a business, private company shares, trust interests, loans or other assets without a quoted price, as at the date of death or the date of distribution. Executors use it to administer the estate, set beneficiaries' cost bases where the law requires it, and answer any challenge in the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
An executor or administrator steps into the deceased's shoes and holds every asset for the beneficiaries until the estate is wound up. To do that job properly they need to know what each asset is worth. Listed shares and bank balances answer that question themselves. A family company, a professional practice, units in a private trust, a loan to a son or daughter, or a share of an investment property do not, and those are the assets that sit at the heart of most Sydney estates of any size.
The exposure is personal. An executor who divides the estate on a figure later shown to be wrong, who lets one beneficiary buy an asset for less than it was worth, or who cannot show how a number was arrived at when another beneficiary asks, can be called to account for the difference. Beneficiaries who are content while the estate is being administered become far less content once they learn what a business or a property later sold for.
Time works against good practice. Grieving families want the estate finalised, the accountant is waiting on figures, and a valuation can feel like one more delay. In practice it is the cheapest step in the whole process. An independent valuation obtained at the right date, before anything is transferred, costs a small fraction of the dispute, the amended assessment or the family provision claim it heads off.
We act for executors, administrators and estate solicitors across Sydney, including where the NSW Trustee and Guardian or a professional executor has been appointed and needs an arm's length figure it can put on the record. We do not act for any beneficiary, which is exactly what makes the number usable by all of them.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Not every asset and not every estate needs a formal valuation, and the estate solicitor decides the legal questions. The valuer's job is to supply a supportable market value for the assets that lack an observable price, at the date that matters. Four situations account for nearly all of the work.
The estate has to be inventoried and its size established for administration, for the executor's accounting to beneficiaries and, where a claim is made, for the Court. A business, a parcel of private company shares, an interest in a partnership or a private trust, real property, intellectual property, family loans and collectables all need a value as at that date.
Where an asset passes in specie to one beneficiary while others take cash or different assets, relative values decide whether the will has been honoured. If values have moved materially since death, the distribution date figure is the one that governs fairness between beneficiaries.
A sale from the estate to a family member is not an arm's length transaction, so the price cannot prove itself. An independent valuation obtained before the sale is what protects the executor from a later claim that the asset went for less than it was worth, and it is the evidence the ATO will look for.
Family provision claims under Chapter 3 of the Succession Act 2006 (NSW) require the Supreme Court of New South Wales to know the size and make-up of the estate before it can decide whether adequate provision was made. The valuation becomes expert evidence and must meet the Court's requirements for it.
The CGT position comes first. Death itself does not usually trigger capital gains tax, but it does fix cost bases for the people who inherit. For an asset the deceased acquired before 20 September 1985, the beneficiary's cost base is reset to the market value on the date of death, so every dollar in that valuation is a dollar of future gain saved or incurred. For an asset acquired on or after that date, the deceased's own cost base carries over and the date-of-death figure is an administration number rather than a tax one. Your tax adviser settles which rule applies to each asset; we then value it to the standard that rule demands.
A discretionary beneficiary has no ownership of the assets held in a family trust. The estate may inherit nothing more than the shares in the trustee company, or the right to appoint a new trustee, rather than the property or the business inside the trust. Treating trust assets as estate assets is one of the most common and most expensive mistakes we see, and it is one the estate solicitor needs to resolve before the valuation is scoped.
The standard is market value: the price a knowledgeable buyer and seller, neither under pressure, would agree at arm's length on the relevant date. For a trading business or a private company the income approach usually leads, capitalising maintainable earnings after the accounts are normalised. The market approach tests the result against comparable sales, and the asset approach sets the floor and takes over for asset-holding entities, investment structures and businesses that will be wound down rather than sold.
Estates then raise questions that ordinary valuations do not. The most important is the business without its principal. Where the deceased ran a medical practice in Macquarie Park, a law firm in the CBD or a trade business in Western Sydney, some of the earnings walked out of the door with them. The valuer has to separate the goodwill that transfers, in systems, staff, contracts and location, from the goodwill that was personal to the deceased, and value the business as it stood on the day, using only what was known or could reasonably have been foreseen at that time. Events after death are evidence of what was foreseeable; they are not a licence to value with hindsight.
A minority parcel in a family company is the second. Sold to an outsider, a 20 per cent holding with no control and no exit attracts a discount. Passed to the sibling who already holds the majority, it completes their control and the case for a discount weakens. We quantify the value on both bases and explain the reasoning, so the executor and the solicitor can apply the right one. Where a shareholders agreement fixes a price on death, that figure may determine what the estate actually receives, but it is not necessarily market value for tax purposes, and the executor may need both numbers.
Most of the estates that reach us with a problem share one of these features.
The report depth follows who will read it and how likely they are to challenge it. An executor working through a straightforward estate with cooperative beneficiaries has different needs from one facing a family provision claim in the Equity Division.
The report states the valuation date, the standard of value, the information relied on and the assumptions made, then works through the approaches considered, the normalisation of the accounts, the treatment of personal goodwill, any discount for a minority or non-marketable interest, and the reconciliation to a conclusion. Where two figures are needed, such as the value on a pro rata and a discounted basis, or the agreement price alongside market value, both are set out with the reasoning, so the executor and the solicitor can apply the right one.
Where an estate is contested, the report is written to comply with the Expert Witness Code of Conduct in Schedule 7 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW): an overriding duty to the Court, the instructions and documents disclosed, the reasoning traceable and the limitations stated. The certified valuer who signs it will confer with the other side's expert, prepare a joint report and give evidence, including concurrently, if the matter runs that far. Most do not, and an independent figure obtained early is usually the reason.
If a beneficiary challenges this distribution in three years' time, what will I show the Court to prove the value I used? If the answer is an estimate, a rates notice or the accountant's letter, the estate is exposed.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.