Free Consultation
Book a Free Consultation
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
A family handover has several jobs to do at once: fund the founder's retirement, give the successor a business that can service what they pay, treat the children outside the business fairly, and satisfy the ATO and the Queensland Revenue Office. None of those can be settled until someone establishes what the business is worth.
Indicative valuations from A$799. Certified Summary and Detailed reports from seven business days.
A succession valuation fixes the market value of a Gold Coast family business, or the shares or units changing hands, on the date they pass to the next generation. Because the ATO substitutes market value for whatever relatives pay, that one figure governs Division 152 relief, the successor's ability to pay and fairness between siblings.
Gold Coast family businesses tend to follow the city's own economy: builders, trades and civil contractors that grew with the northern corridor around Coomera, marine manufacturers and boat builders in the Coomera marine precinct and around Hope Island, tourism, accommodation and hospitality operators from Surfers Paradise to Coolangatta, and health and allied health practices around the Parklands precinct and Robina. Many founders came from interstate decades ago, built the business through the region's long run of population growth and are now close to retirement. Most would rather pass it to a son, daughter or trusted relative than sell to a stranger, and that is the exit planned least carefully, because without an outside buyer nobody tests the price and often no price is set at all.
That gap matters because one number has to satisfy several people at once. For the founder, the question is whether the business can pay for retirement. For the successor, it is whether the business can support what they are paying. The siblings who are not joining want to see that they were dealt with fairly, and the ATO treats a transfer between relatives as made at market value, whatever actually changed hands.
With no figure, the family bargains on instinct. With one, the conversation turns practical: how much, paid how, over what period, and what each other child receives instead. Arguments between siblings over a family business are among the hardest we deal with, and most go back to a value that was assumed rather than established, which can resurface years later as a family provision application under section 41 of the Succession Act 1981 (Qld).
We value businesses, shareholdings and trust units for family succession from Coolangatta to Coomera and up to Tamborine Mountain and Canungra, whether the business is a fabricator in the Burleigh industrial estate, an earthmoving contractor at Nerang or a physiotherapy group in Southport. The valuer sets the market value and explains it to everyone at the table; your accountant and lawyer then design the transfer around it.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Passing the business to family may be generous in spirit, but tax law, duty law and anyone who challenges the transfer later will treat it as a transaction. Your tax adviser works out how each rule below applies; every one of them turns on a market value, and that is what the valuer provides.
Of the small business concessions, this one suits succession best: an owner aged 55 or older who has held the asset for at least 15 years and disposes of it in connection with retirement can disregard the whole gain. Access depends first on the $2 million aggregated turnover test or the $6 million net asset test at the time of transfer, and the net asset test is itself a valuation across the owner, connected entities and affiliates.
Between relatives, tax law sets aside the price paid and uses market value. Moving shares at book value, for a nominal sum or as a gift still produces a capital gain measured on what the shares were actually worth, and an understated figure can be reopened years later with shortfall interest and penalties.
If the handover takes in the business premises, or a significant interest in a company or unit trust that holds Queensland land, transfer duty or landholder duty under the Duties Act 2001 (Qld) may be payable, assessed by the Queensland Revenue Office on value rather than on the family price. Your lawyer confirms whether other business assets are dutiable in your circumstances, and the Commissioner may form a separate view of the land value. Where the family owns the building the business trades from, this is often the largest single item in the plan.
When a private company owns the business and value moves to a shareholder or relative for less than market consideration, Division 7A can treat the difference as a dividend. Succession plans trigger it by accident through cheap share transfers, unpaid present entitlements and family loans that were never documented.
Superannuation sits next to these rules and has its own deadline. A gain covered by the 15-year exemption or the retirement exemption can be contributed to super under the lifetime CGT cap, outside the ordinary contribution caps, provided the election reaches the fund no later than the contribution itself. Miss that timing and the benefit is usually lost, because the step cannot be repaired after the event.
A valuation on the day of transfer records the position; one obtained well in advance can still shape it. There is time to strengthen the value drivers, restructure so the Division 152 tests are met, lengthen the handover and let the family talk it over without a deadline. The most useful succession valuations are the ones nobody is yet obliged to commission.
The standard is market value: what the business, or the interest being passed on, would fetch between an informed, willing buyer and an informed, willing seller, neither under pressure. It is deliberately an outsider's figure. It is not what the successor can afford, what the founder hopes for or what keeps the siblings comfortable, though putting it on the table usually makes all three discussions easier.
For an established trading business the income approach leads. Future maintainable earnings are capitalised at a rate that reflects the risk of those earnings continuing once the founder steps back, and in succession that risk is the heart of the matter. Where customers, supplier terms, licences or know-how rest with the founder personally, part of the earnings will not survive the handover, so we separate goodwill that stays with the business from goodwill that leaves with the person. A Coomera boat builder whose major clients deal only with the founder is a very different asset from one where the successor has run the yard and the order book for a decade.
The market approach tests the result against what comparable businesses have sold for, which also shows the family what an outside sale would realistically bring as the alternative. The asset approach sets the floor, and for a hinterland farm stay or orchard near Canungra or on Tamborine Mountain, an accommodation business that owns its building, or any business that holds its own premises, it is often the figure that matters most, because the property can be worth several times the business run on it.
We see these most often when a handover lands on our desk afterwards, typically because the business is now on the market or an estate is being challenged in the Supreme Court of Queensland.
Start from who will rely on the number and how hard it may be tested later. While the founder is still asking whether retirement adds up, a clear internal view is enough. Once the figure sets the price, backs a Division 152 claim or determines each child's share, it should carry a certified valuer's signature.
Every report states the purpose, the standard and premise of value, the valuation date and the information relied on. Each normalisation adjustment appears with its reason. The report explains how founder dependency was assessed and what it did to value, ties the capitalisation rate and any multiple to identified sources, and reconciles the approaches to a range with the weighting explained in plain terms. If control, a minority holding or a staged tranche alters the value, each one is valued on its own, giving the family the full picture in a single report.
Family transfers tend to be revisited long after the event, sometimes a decade on, when the business is sold or a family provision claim reaches the Supreme Court of Queensland, where expert reports must comply with Chapter 11 Part 5 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (Qld). We write for a reader who was never part of the family's conversations. A certified valuer signs the report, takes your accountant, your lawyer and the family through it, and will defend it if the ATO, the Queensland Revenue Office or another expert challenges it.
If one of the children disputes this handover in ten years, will the report by itself show why the figure was right on the day? If the explanation depends on someone remembering a conversation, the valuation has failed at its main task.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.