High Net Worth Property Settlements in Victoria

What this practice area covers

This page anchors our work on property settlements involving complex pools, typically above five million dollars in net wealth. The cluster includes founders and operating shareholders of private companies, professional partners with carried interest, executives with significant equity compensation, beneficiaries of family trusts, owners of investment property portfolios, and clients with material assets held outside Australia.

The work differs from standard property settlement work along three axes. The asset pool is dominated by illiquid interests that require independent valuation, not bank balances. The structures involved, including discretionary trusts, holding companies, unit trusts, and self-managed superannuation funds, all require analysis before any negotiation can be sensible. And the tax and structuring consequences of the settlement are often as material as the split itself, because seven-figure transfers between separating spouses can trigger CGT, stamp duty, Division 7A, and superannuation issues that smaller matters do not.

We act on these matters from Melbourne CBD and Dandenong, often in coordination with the client's accountants, family office, corporate counsel, and overseas advisers. We do not act on consumer-volume property work.

The legal framework in Australia

High net worth property settlements are governed by the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) and applied by the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. Section 79 sets the four-step approach: identify the pool, assess each party's contributions, assess each party's future needs, and consider whether the proposed division is just and equitable. Sections 72 and 75(2) govern spousal maintenance, including the future needs adjustments that often matter most in HNW outcomes.

Stanford v Stanford (2012) 247 CLR 108 remains the threshold authority. The High Court confirmed that the Court must be satisfied it is just and equitable to make any order altering existing property interests at all. For separated couples this is rarely an obstacle, but in HNW matters where one party seeks to keep specific assets quarantined, including pre-relationship wealth and inherited assets, the Stanford threshold is engaged in substance even if not always in form.

Kennon v Spry (2008) 238 CLR 366 governs the treatment of family trusts. Where one spouse effectively controls a discretionary trust, the trust assets can be treated as that spouse's property under section 79. The High Court declined to draw a bright line, and the analysis turns on control, the trust deed, and the practical history of distributions. We have written separately on trusts in family law and the cluster anchored at Trusts and Family Law in Victoria.

On valuation methodology, Salmon & Salmon [2020] FamCAFC 134 is a useful Full Court decision on competing expert valuations and the gateway for departing from an appointed single expert. It is regularly engaged in matters where the parties have instructed competing experts rather than a single expert, which remains the most contested early decision in HNW property work.

Self-managed superannuation funds are split under Part VIIIB of the Family Law Act, by either a payment split or an interest split, depending on the fund's structure and the parties' objectives. The interaction with the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993 (Cth) and the trust deed, including the corporate trustee composition, often dictates the splitting mechanism rather than the family law preferences. SMSF disputes in family law are a meaningful workstream in their own right.

Disclosure is governed by the Federal Circuit and Family Court Rules 2021 (Cth), particularly the duty of full and frank financial disclosure that runs from the start of negotiations through to final orders. The duty extends to overseas assets, beneficial interests, and trust positions. Non-disclosure carries serious consequences, including adverse inferences, costs orders, and the risk of consent orders being set aside.

How we work across this area

Valuation strategy is usually the first decision that matters. Before any disclosure exchange, we work through whether to pursue a single expert by consent, two experts with a Court-supervised process, or an early forensic accounting review to test the other side's financial position. The methodology decision, including the treatment of minority discounts, the use of capitalisation versus DCF, and the valuation date, is often more determinative of outcome than the section 79 percentage assessment.

We work alongside forensic accountants, business valuers, structural tax advisers, and offshore counsel where relevant. For matters with international assets, including property in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the United States, we coordinate disclosure timelines and enforcement strategy from the outset. Disclosure is treated as an offensive workstream, not a defensive one.

Tax-aware settlement structuring is treated as a default, not an add-on. We routinely model after-tax outcomes for proposed divisions before they are advanced as offers. Most of the value loss in HNW property settlements does not come from the percentage split. It comes from poorly structured transfers, missed CGT rollovers under section 126-5 of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 (Cth), and avoidable Division 7A exposure. Settlements that look identical at the headline level produce materially different net positions.