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Family Law Matters

In Family Law matters, we may be engaged in the following capacities:

• As a single expert witness engaged by both parties (including by Court Order).
• As an expert appointment by one party only.
• As a shadow expert engaged by one party to critique the expert report prepared by a single expert or opposing party.
• As a consultant engaged by one of the parties to assist in the identification of assets or an aspect of the valuation process.

For lawyers:

You may engage us as a single expert witness for both parties by providing a joint letter of instruction.

For expert appointments by one party only or to engage us as an ordinary witness, please phone the office for a quote. We will guide you through next steps on the call if you wish to proceed, advising how you can provide instruction to us in writing (usually via email) and we will then formally respond with a formal Letter of Engagement for signature.

For individuals:

If you are legally represented, contact your legal representatives so they may provide instructions on your behalf.

If you are self represented and wish to engage us as a single expert witness for both parties, please contact our office for details. A joint letter of engagement is required to be signed by both parties before we can proceed, but we will guide you through the requirements on a call and issue you with the relevant letter to be signed.

All Other Matters

For all other matters, please contact our office directly via phone or email and one of our approachable team members will assist you.

Valuation Services (including Family Law valuations) are quoted on a case by case basis. As a guide, reports typically start from $5,000 plus GST. The fees charged will depend on a number of factors including turnover, the number of entities to be valued and the quality of the information provided.

Additional services requested (including answering formal questions regarding a report, or attending Court as an expert witness) will be charged at our professional rates.

Forensic Consulting Services other than valuations, including for the purposes of Family Law, are charged at our professional rates. As these matters can vary widely, please contact our office for a quote.

When engaged as an expert witness in Family Law and in other matters, our conduct is governed under expert witness rules. Ultimately the duty of the expert witness is to the Court, and in particular to impartially assist the Court with matters that are within the expert witness’s knowledge and capability.

We do not advocate for any party and these rules apply at each stage of your legal process.

When engaged under joint instructions, any correspondence to our office must be transparent for all parties involved (ie any emails sent to our office will be required to include the other parties) and best kept to written communications.

For further details regarding our role as expert witness, please refer to Part 7.1 of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia (Family Law) Rules 2021. Your legal representative will be able to assist with any queries you may have.

We generally destroy all documents received if ten years have lapsed since the time we received them. We are committed to maintaining confidentiality and will not disclose any information about your matter to third parties without your consent, unless required by law or professional standards. You may authorise us to disclose specific confidential information, or impose conditions on any such disclosures.

Please note our files may be reviewed as part of the quality assurance program conducted by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia. This program monitors members’ compliance with the professional standards and is itself bound by strict confidentiality. If your file is selected for review, we will notify you.

We will typically request the following information to enable us to prepare a valuation report:

• Details of the business (background, days and hours of operation, website, products/services provided etc).
• Financial statements of the business for the years ended 30 June XX to most current.
• Forecast/Budget.
• Clients and $ sales per annum of top 5 clients for the last two recent financial years.
• Suppliers and $ purchases per annum of top 5 suppliers for the last two recent financial years.
• Copy of aged trade debtors and creditors listing for the last two recent financial years.
• Details of salaries, superannuation and other benefits paid to the owners and associated persons during the last four recent financial years.
• Details of any planned capital (plant and equipment) expenditure in the short to medium term.
• Listing and details of employee entitlements for the last two recent financial years.
• Business plans OR owners’ views of strengths and weaknesses of the business.
• Details of business premises leased, key terms.
• A list of main competitors.
• Details of any key commercial contracts in place for the last two recent financial years.
• Details of borrowings in place – facilities, security, term, etc.
• Details of any contingent assets/liabilities (e.g. current or pending legal proceedings)
• Details of any unusual transactions in the last 3 years.
• Any other information considered relevant by the owners/parties

Our ability to deliver a high quality assessment and report will depend on the completeness of the information provided.

For the most part, we do not need to see the business premises provided detailed information is provided to our office regarding your business operations, or the business is not location dependent.

For valuation purposes, we are interested in the key details of the lease, and/or if the property is owned by a related party. In such cases, we will request a commercial rent appraisal or property valuation to be prepared by an independent property valuer. We are not property valuers.

We have prepared a number of these reports for Lawyers representing clients diagnosed with asbestos related diseases. We have then gone on to prepare reports for loss of dependency in matters where the client has unfortunately passed away from their illness.

The information that we generally request to prepare these reports start with the following:

• Statement of Claim
• Income tax returns of the Claimant for the last four years

Our fees are usually around $4,000 to $5,000 plus GST, subject to the scope and complexity of the report.

The above also applies for work related injuries and TAC matters.

Our forensic services include, but are not limited to:

• Wastage and Addback determinations
• Review and/or reconciliation of superannuation entitlements in a private business
• Analysis of unsecured personal loan accounts in a private business
• Review of bank statements for undisclosed revenue
• Preparation of loan repayment schedules according to loan agreement terms

Fees for these matters can vary greatly, and are charged at our standard professional rates.

For a current cost estimate, please contact our office.  To assist us with providing an estimate, it is helpful to have a clear scope of instructions (eg. the time period to be reviewed or the types of transactions to be investigated). If needed, we can also help you to define the scope of works when you get in touch.