What your share of the property is actually worth, before anybody signs

You are negotiating against a range. You may as well know what it is.

Australian property settlement is not a formula and it is not 50/50. Section 79 of the Family Law Act sets out a four step pathway: identify and value the pool, assess contributions, assess current and future circumstances, and then ask whether the result is just and equitable. Every step is a judgement, which is exactly why people negotiate blind — and why the advice you get is a range delivered verbally, at $440 to $660 an hour.

Ranges are still knowable. In adjudicated matters the mean share to mothers runs around 57%, with an overall adjudicated mean near 54%, and the adjustment for future circumstances most commonly falls in the 10% to 15% band. Those are not your case. They are the distribution your case sits inside, and knowing where you sit inside it is worth a great deal at the point somebody puts an offer on the table.

Only about 7.2% of separating couples use the courts pathway at all. The other side of that statistic is that almost every settlement in Australia is agreed by two people, one of whom usually has a better idea of the range than the other.

What it works out

• All four steps, in order. The pool, contributions, the section 79(4) and 75(2) factors, and the just and equitable test — each one applied to your own figures rather than to an average.
• Every factor priced in percentage points. Not "this will help you" but how much it moves the range, and in which direction, so you can see which facts are doing the work.
• A percentage range and a dollar range. Both, because a percentage of a pool that has not been valued properly is not a number anyone can act on.
• Superannuation as part of the pool. Including the cost of splitting it — an information request runs up to $165 and a splitting order up to $541.
• Nine ways of settling, ranked on what reaches you. Consent orders at $215, mediation, arbitration at $16,500 to $43,250, the simplified pathway for pools under $550,000, and a defended hearing — each net of the cost and the time of getting there.

What the full report adds

1. The cost of the fight, priced against the gain from it. A better percentage reached through a defended hearing is frequently a worse outcome in dollars, and that is a comparison almost nobody runs.
2. Time as a variable. 61% of matters resolve within a year; a judgment takes around 14 months. The report shows what each extra month costs.
3. Sensitivity on the contested facts. If the disagreement is about one valuation or one contribution, see exactly what winning that argument is worth.
4. A document to take to a lawyer or a mediator. Initial advice runs $2,000 to $4,400; arriving with the pool identified and the range worked out changes what that hour buys.

What it will not do

It is not legal advice and it cannot be. No calculator applies the just and equitable test — a court does, on evidence, and a range produced from figures typed into a form is a starting point for a conversation with a family lawyer rather than a substitute for one. Family violence, parenting arrangements and conduct all bear on a settlement in ways arithmetic does not reach.

If you are in danger, contact 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. Everything here runs on the Family Law Act as at 10 June 2025 and the court fees in force from 1 July 2026.