"I just want to know if 40% is fair."
Somebody has said a figure and it is sitting there. You cannot tell whether it is reasonable, and the only way to find out costs money you were not planning to spend on finding out.
Full access is live
Welcome back
Every calculation is unlocked. Change one figure and run it again as many times as you like — nothing is deducted, nothing counts down, and none of it expires.
Your access
Unlimited
No expiry, nothing to renew
Good to know
All guides
The rules in force
10 June 2025
Section 79 as rewritten by the Family Law Amendment Act 2024
Court fees as at
1 July 2026
Indexed on 1 July each year
Figures next change
1 July
Run your figures again after that date
Consent orders filing fee
$215
The whole court cost of formalising an agreement
Your account
Access and ordersBefore you sign anything
Don't lose over $110,000. We'll show you your property settlement range.
You have separated, somebody has said a number out loud, and you have no idea whether it is generous, insulting or about right. Nobody will tell you — not the bank, not your former partner's solicitor, and not the internet, which mostly says "it depends".
A family lawyer will work out your range, at $440 to $660 an hour, once you have an appointment. This does it in about six minutes — the four steps in the Act, on your own figures, with every factor sized so you can see what is moving it.
- Free estimate. No card, no sign up
- Full report $249 — consent orders alone cost $2,000+
- Built on the Family Law Act as rewritten on 10 June 2025
30 second estimate
Five questions for a rough range:
$
$
$
—
Your share of the pool
—
at the bottom of the range
Your share of the pool, at least
$—
—
A rough guide only. It splits the superannuation evenly and assumes nothing was brought in at the start — the full calculator asks properly, and both of those move the answer a long way.
If this is you
If none of this makes sense,
that is not your fault.
The rules are public. They are also written as a discretion rather than a formula, spread across a statute and several thousand judgments, and there is no official document anywhere that turns them into a number for you.
"What on earth is a section 75(2) factor?"
Contributions. Future needs. Just and equitable. Add-backs. Every one of them is a real thing with real money attached, and every one of them is written in language nobody uses outside a courtroom.
"Everyone tells me something different."
Your sister got 70%. Your friend at work says it is always half. Somebody on the internet says superannuation does not count. One of those was true in 1998, one was a different case entirely, and one has never been true.
"If I sign this, is it over for good?"
Yes, and that is the point of it. Consent orders are final, and the whole reason to know the range beforehand is that there is no version of this where you get to find out afterwards and change your mind.
So we built the thing that was missing.
You put in what the two of you own, owe and earn. We run the four steps the Family Law Act actually sets out, size every factor in percentage points, and give you the range. No appointment, no retainer, no letter arriving in a fortnight, and nobody rings you.
The court won't tell you
A registrar checks that a division you have already agreed is within the range of
what is just and equitable. It is not their job to work out your range for you, and
they will not.
Their solicitor won't tell you
They act for your former partner. They are obliged to disclose the financial
position, and they are obliged to do the best they can for the person paying them —
which is not you.
A family lawyer will — at $440 to $660 an hour
And for a contested matter that is the right call, without question. But most people
want the range before they decide whether they have a contest, and that is the one
thing nobody sells on its own.
Six minutes, no card, and you will know the range. It costs nothing.
The loss
Same house. Same super. Same day.
Two very different answers.
Eighteen years married, two children at home, one of them back at work three days a week on $55,000 while the other earns $130,000. A — pool once the house is sold and the debts come off.
Split it down the middle
They agreed on half, because half sounds fair
- Nobody worked out the pool, so the superannuation was left out of the conversation
- Fourteen years mostly at home was never put on the page as a contribution
- The future needs step was never reached, because nobody knew it existed
- Consent orders were filed, and consent orders are final
What half comes to
—
Ran the four steps
They worked out the range first
- The pool was identified and valued, superannuation included, before anybody named a number
- Contributions were assessed across the whole eighteen years, paid and unpaid
- Income, age and the care of two children were weighed at the future needs step
- The range came out at —, and the negotiation started there
The middle of that range
—
Same pool. Same rules. One of them signed for this much less.
—
And even once you know the range, there is still —
between one end of it and the other, decided by negotiation rather than by law. Neither
household did anything wrong and nobody cheated anybody: there is no starting point of half
anywhere in the Family Law Act, and the first household was simply never shown the four
steps that produce the real answer.
The report that stops this being you costs $249.
That household is invented and the figures beside it are computed live, on this page, by the same engine the paid report uses — reload and they are worked out again. What is not invented is the method: section 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 as rewritten on 10 June 2025, applied in the order the Act applies it.
The alternatives
Four ways to find out your range.
Three of them cost more than this one.
| Guess what most people do |
A family lawyer an advice conference |
This calculator Right here, tonight |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Nothing now, sometimes six figures later |
$440–$660 an hour | $249 |
| How long it takes | An afternoon of worrying | An appointment, then a letter | About six minutes |
| Every factor sized in points | Usually described, rarely itemised | ||
| Advice on your own case | |||
| Working shown | Usually not |
The clock
Three dates that decide this for you
Property settlement runs on deadlines, and past one of them the choice gets made for you. None of these is our deadline: they are in the Act and in the fees regulations, and you can go and read all three.
If you were living together, not married
Section 44(5). Two years from the day the relationship broke down, and the clock starts on the separation rather than on any paperwork. After that you need the court's permission to apply at all, and it is not given as a matter of course. Reaching an agreement does not stop the clock — only filing something does. Read the rules.
If you were married
Section 44(3). There is no deadline at all until a divorce order takes effect — and then exactly twelve months. Which means applying for the divorce first, before the property is sorted out, starts a clock that did not previously exist. The divorce is a completely separate application with its own fee of —, and it divides nothing.
When every court fee moves
The Family Law (Fees) Regulations 2022 index the whole schedule on 1 July each year. The figures in this report are the — schedule, and a defended matter running past a 1 July costs more on the other side of it — the setting down fee, the daily hearing fee, all of it. It moves the cost of every route and none of the percentages.
The report
The Property Settlement Report
The free estimate gives you the range and tells you which of the statutory factors are switched on for you. This is the part that says how big each one is, what happens if any of them is wrong, and what every way of settling actually leaves you. Up to fourteen sections and eleven charts, on your own figures, with every working shown so you can check it or argue with it.
Free — tells you there is a range
- Your pool, itemised, superannuation included
- Your range as a percentage, both ends of it
- Which of the statutory factors apply to you, named
- What the range is worth in dollars, banded
- Every way of settling named, with what each one costs
What stops the loss — $249
- Every factor sized in percentage points, and which way each one pushes
- The walk from an equal split to your number, step by step
- What your range becomes if any one factor is wrong
- Every way of settling ranked on what reaches you
- The offered percentage at which accepting beats pursuing
- Your share against what Australian settlements actually produce
- The assistant, on your own figures, with no limit
- The whole thing as a PDF you can print, charts included
See a real one, free — an invented household run all the way through, with the open half exactly as a customer sees it, and the assistant live on it for two questions.
How it works
Your settlement range in three steps
If you can read a bank statement you can use this. Simple mode asks about nine questions. Detailed also asks about money either of you brought in, inheritances, and anything that was deliberately lost — which move a range further than anything else on the form.
Tell us what the two of you have
The house, what is owing on it, savings, debts, both superannuation balances, both incomes, ages, and who the children live with. We never ask for your name, your address, an account number or a court file number, and nothing you type leaves your browser unless you buy a report.
See your range, free
Your pool itemised, your share as a percentage range with both ends of it, and every statutory factor that is switched on for you, named. That is the whole free result and it is a real answer on its own.
Find out what is actually moving it
$249 opens the full report: every factor in percentage points, what the range becomes if one of them is wrong, and every way of settling ranked on what reaches you. PDF included, ready to take to a lawyer.
Built on the Family Law Act 1975
Sections 79 and 90SM as rewritten by the Family Law Amendment Act 2024, in force from 10 June 2025. Court fees are the Federal Circuit and Family Court's published schedule from 1 July 2026.
Every working shown
Nothing is a black box. Every percentage point in the report carries the factor that produced it, the section of the Act it comes from, and the sentence explaining it.
Not legal advice, and we say so
We are not lawyers and we are not licensed to tell you what to do. There is no formula in the Act — there is a discretion — which is why the answer is a range and why nobody should ever present it as a number.
Refunded if it does not fit
If the report does not apply to your circumstances, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and we refund you in full.
Included with the report
And if you do not follow something,
just ask it.
Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report — your pool, your factors, your range — and answers questions about it in plain English. Not a search box and not a help page. It knows what your report says because it has been given it.
Ask Agent
Why is my range 60 to 70% and not half?
Two things moved it. Contributions came out at 53%, three points above equal, because you did most of the unpaid work over 19 years. Then the future needs step added 12 points on top — 5.2 of them from the income gap, $48,000 against $138,000, and 4 from the two children living with you.
What does "future needs" actually mean?
It is the step after contributions. The court looks at where each of you stands going forward — age, health, income, what you can realistically earn from here, and who is housing the children — and adjusts the percentage towards whoever is in the weaker position. Most people have never heard of it, and it decides more settlements than contributions do.
An example of the kind of answer it gives, on the sample report's figures.
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It has your report, not a script Why is my number what it is. Which factor is moving it most. Is the offer on the table worth arguing about. It answers from your own figures and quotes them back.
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Plain English, on a subject that is anything but It is built for this one subject and told to explain rather than impress — it will not write "s 75(2)" without saying what it means, and it does not lecture.
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Entirely optional. Use it or ignore it. It sits behind one button on your report and does nothing until you press it. Nothing in the report is held back from somebody who never opens it, and nothing is sent anywhere unless you ask it something.
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It is never told who you are What it receives is the figures on your report — amounts, ages and categories. Not your name, not your email address, not your account, not your former partner's name, and never a Centrelink reference, a bank account or a court file number, because we do not hold those. The name you can put on the report cover is optional and is not part of what it is given.
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Nothing is kept The conversation stays in your browser tab and is gone when you close it. We record that a question was asked so we know the feature is used — never what it said. Section 5 of the privacy policy sets out exactly what does and does not travel.
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It explains. It does not advise. It will tell you what the Act says, how each factor was sized and where the figures came from, and it will not tell you what to do or what you will get — the same line the report itself holds. Nothing here is legal advice.
Pricing
Less than one hour of a family lawyer's time
One payment, no expiry, nothing to renew, and we never keep your card. It opens the whole report and lets you run the figures again as often as you like — which matters, because a valuation changes and an offer changes and both of those change the answer.
The only thing you can lose here is the price of the pass — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and we refund you in full.
Prices in Australian dollars. Paid securely through PayPal — card or PayPal balance, no account needed. See a sample report before you decide.
Questions
The questions everyone asks first
No. There is no legislated starting point of half, and the published research does not show one either. In the largest Australian study of separated parents, mothers received 57% of the property on average; in an analysis of 200 court decisions the average was 54% to mothers. Both are averages across households nothing like each other, which is exactly why a range on your own figures is worth more than either.
In four steps, set out in section 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 and restructured by the Family Law Amendment Act 2024 from 10 June 2025. Identify and value everything you both own and owe. Assess what each of you contributed. Assess where each of you stands now and in the future. Then ask whether the result is just and equitable. There is no formula and no presumption of half, and what comes out is a range rather than a number.
It goes in the pool as property, and it has since 2002. A court order or a binding financial agreement can require a fund to move part of one balance into the other person's fund. It does not become cash — it stays superannuation and stays locked up under the ordinary rules. A couple who divide the house evenly and each keep their own super have divided part of the pool and called it all of it.
Since 10 June 2025 the Act says so expressly. Section 79(4)(ca) requires the effect of family violence on a party's ability to contribute to be taken into account, and section 79(5)(a) requires its effect on that party's current and future circumstances to be taken into account as well. Section 4AB now lists economic and financial abuse — controlling money or superannuation, sabotaging employment, building debt in somebody else's name — as examples of family violence.
If you were living together and not married, two years from the day you separated — section 44(5). If you were married, there is no deadline at all until a divorce order takes effect, and then twelve months from that day — section 44(3). Past either limit you need the court's permission to apply, and it is not given as a matter of course. Reaching an agreement does not stop the clock; only filing something does.
Because the pathway is public, structured and published in thousands of judgments, and arithmetic scales. Published fixed fees for property consent orders run from $2,000 to $4,400, and senior family lawyers publish hourly rates of $440 to $660. What that buys and this does not is advice on your own case from somebody licensed to give it.
You will sign this once.
Consent orders are final. So is a binding financial agreement. There is no version of this where you find out afterwards what the range was and go back — that is the whole point of them, and it is why every part of this decision that can be worked out beforehand should be. Six minutes now is the cheapest six minutes of the entire process.
No card. No sign up. Your range on the next screen.
Nobody is going to hand you the range. It takes about six minutes to work out your own.
Your property settlement range
Most calculators split your assets down the middle and call it an answer. This one runs the four steps the Act actually sets out — pool, contributions, future needs, just and equitable — and gives you the range, because a range is what the law produces.
Let's work out your range. Nothing here is sent anywhere, and you can stop at any point.
Step 1
Just started
Rules as at —.
Your estimate
Your settlement range
Which parts of the Act apply to you
The part that decides what you sign
You could lose $0
Your range is free and it is on this page. What you have not seen is how big each factor is.
A family lawyer, per hour
$440 – $660
Getting it wrong
—
This report, right now
$249
Unlock every factor, sized — and the offer at which arguing stops paying
You can provide a different email to use as your login - or the PayPal one
Secured by PayPal
Refundable
Nothing renews
And you can ask it questions. Your report comes with an assistant that has read it and explains any figure in plain English — if you want it. It is given the amounts on your report, never your name or your email, and the conversation stays in your browser.
The only thing you can lose here is the price of the pass — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and
we refund you in full.
Not deciding today?
Send this estimate to yourself — free
Your range, your pool and the link back to everything you entered, so you can pick this up on a laptop or show it to somebody. One email, and the subject line gives nothing away on a lock screen.
One email, then only if the figures change or a deadline is close. Unsubscribe in one click. We never sell your address.
Before you sign anything
Know the range before somebody else names a number
People sign consent orders at 40% when the range was 55 to 65, and consent orders are final. Other people spend $25,000 at a hearing to move a gap smaller than that. This report prices every factor in percentage points and works out the offered percentage at which each way of settling stops being worth what it costs.
The only thing you can lose here is $249 — and you cannot lose that either.
If it does not fit your situation, tell us what went wrong within 14 days and we refund you
in full. See a sample report before you buy.
Before you decide
Yes, it is included, and using it is entirely your choice. It sits behind one button on your report and does nothing until you press it — nothing in the report is held back from somebody who never opens it.
When you do ask it something, what it receives is the figures on your report: amounts and categories. Not your name, not your email address, not your account, and never a Medicare number, tax file number or bank detail — we do not hold those in the first place. The name you can put on the report cover is optional and is not part of what it is given. The conversation stays in your browser tab and is gone when you close it, and we record that a question was asked without recording what it said.
Section 5 of the privacy policy sets out exactly what does and does not travel, including who processes it.
No. You pay once and the access is yours. There is no subscription and nothing renews. PayPal handles the payment, so we never even see your card number.
No, and it is not a prediction of what a court would order. We are not lawyers. What this does is apply the four steps in section 79 of the Family Law Act to the figures you enter and show what they produce, with every working visible. There is no formula in the Act — there is a discretion — which is why the answer is a range and why nobody honest would give you a single number. It is a far better thing to walk into a lawyer's office holding than a blank page.
The Property Settlement Calculator provides information, not legal advice. We are not licensed to give personal financial advice and we never tell you which option to pick. What we do is apply the published rules to the figures you enter and show you what they produce, with every working visible. Your actual division is decided by one of two things and neither of them is us: an agreement you and your former partner both sign and have made into consent orders, or a judge exercising a discretion under the Family Law Act 1975. Get advice on your own case from a family lawyer before you sign anything.
Checkout
Pay once and the full report opens on the figures you already entered. Nothing renews and no card is kept on file.
What you are getting
Total
$0.00
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Secured by PayPal
Pay by PayPal or card
No renewals
Worked examples
Nine households. Nine real answers.
Nine separated people, invented but ordinary, run through the same engine as the paid report. Not one figure on this page is typed in: the inputs are written down and the calculator works out the rest when you load the page, so it cannot go stale while the rules move underneath it. Six of them stand to lose six figures by assuming half. Three should stop, sign, and spend nothing.
First, the two things nobody explains
1
There is no starting point of half. Anywhere.
People say "it's 50/50" the way they say the earth goes round the sun. It is not in the Family Law Act, it has never been in it, and it is not what the published research finds either. What the Act sets out is four steps and a discretion. Half is where a lot of settlements happen to land, which is a different thing entirely.
2
The step that moves the number most has no name anybody knows
After contributions comes an adjustment for age, health, income, earning capacity and who the children live with. Everybody inside the system calls them "the section 75(2) factors", almost nobody outside it has heard of them, and they decide more settlements than contributions do.
Everything below is those two facts in real dollars, for nine different households. Worked out on the Family Law Act as it has stood since current.
None of these is you.
Your own range depends on the size of your pool, how long you were together, what either of you brought in, the gap between two incomes, who the children live with, and half a dozen things besides. Change any one of them and the answer moves. Six minutes, no card.
Your options, side by side
Every way of settling the same pool, and what each one reaches Jo after the cost of getting there. Same pool, same facts — the difference is only in how far it is taken and what that costs. Ranked on that one measure, if the settlement lands at the position named on that row. Open Show Details on any of them — the panels are live on this page.
The short version
The four steps in section 79 of the Family Law Act 1975, run on Jo's figures, against the rules as they have stood since 10 June 2025.
Her range
60–70%
of a $936,240 pool
Which is
$561,744
at the bottom, $655,368 at the top
Between the two ends
$93,624
decided by negotiation, not by law
Her range is 60% to 70%. An even split would be $468,120, which is $140,599 below the middle of the range her own figures produce.
What is on the table is 47%, or $440,033. That is below the bottom of the range, by $121,711.
Step 1 — what is in the pool
Everything either of them owns, less everything either of them owes. One pool, not two piles: whose name something is in makes no difference to whether it goes in.
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| The home | $840,000 |
| Less the mortgage on it | −$310,000 |
| Everything else they both own | $55,000 |
| Less everything else they both owe | −$34,000 |
| Her superannuation | $118,000 |
| His superannuation | $296,000 |
| The pool, before the cost of dividing it | $965,000 |
| Less agent commission at 2.65% on $840,000 | −$22,260 |
| Less marketing and conveyancing on the sale | −$6,500 |
| The net pool everything below is a share of | $936,240 |
How the percentage was arrived at
Equal, then what contributions do to that, then what current and future circumstances do, then a check on the whole answer. Each step is a departure from the one before it, and each departure has a reason attached.
Step 2, contributions: +3.0 points, landing at 53.0%. Section 79(4). Financial, non-financial, and as a homemaker and parent — the Act treats all three as capable of being worth the same, which is why a household with one earner and one homemaker usually comes out at or near equal here rather than badly unequal.
Step 3, current and future circumstances: +12.0 points. Section 79(5), which everybody still calls the section 75(2) factors. Age, health, income, what each of them can realistically earn from here, and who the children live with. This is the step that decides most cases and the one most people have never heard of.
Every factor, in percentage points
Each matter the Act names, sized, and pointing one way or the other. A plus moves the share towards Jo; a minus moves it towards her former partner. Neither is good or bad — they are directions.
| Factor | Section | Points |
|---|---|---|
| Running the household and raising the children Step 2 — contributions | s 79(4) | +3.0 |
| Caring for the children, and housing them Step 3 — current and future circumstances | s 79(5) | +4.0 |
| Income and the capacity to earn Step 3 — current and future circumstances | s 79(5) | +5.2 |
| How long it lasted, and what that did to a career Step 3 — current and future circumstances | s 79(5) | +2.8 |
The same routes, drawn to scale
Every row except the first is priced at the middle of Jo's range, because no route can be shown to produce a better percentage than another. What differs between them is the cost.
Eight more sections, and the seven charts in them
- 07What each route costs, as a range
- 08Where accepting stops being the worse answer
- 09What the range becomes if a factor is wrong
- 10How that compares with published outcomes
- 11The range in dollars
- 12Who ends up with what, at each end
- 13Is it just and equitable
- 14The deadline, and the order things happen in
Everything above is real arithmetic on a fictional household. Run yours and this half opens on your own figures.
And you can ask it questions. Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report and explains any figure in it in plain English. Using it is entirely your choice, it does nothing until you press the button, and it is given the amounts on your report and never your name, your email, your account or your former partner's name.
That is Jo's answer. Yours takes about six minutes and costs nothing.
We could not find that link
The link may have already been used. If you are still getting emails, write to us and we will stop them by hand.
Guides
Property settlement, explained properly
Written for somebody who separated three weeks ago and has never had a reason to know any of this. Every guide names the section of the Family Law Act it is about, quotes the published research rather than an opinion, and shows the working — which is the part the official pages leave out, because the official pages are written for people who already know.
Reading is useful. Knowing your own range before anybody names a figure is better.
Married, de facto and deadlines
Divorce vs property settlement in Australia: what is the difference?
A divorce ends a marriage. It does not divide a single dollar, does not deal with the house, the superannuation or the debts, and does not decide anything about the children. It is a separate application with a separate fee — and filing it starts a twelve month clock on the property that did not previously exist.
What a divorce actually is
An order that the marriage has ended. That is the whole of it. Australia has had no-fault divorce since the Family Law Act 1975: the only ground is that the marriage has broken down irretrievably, established by the parties having been separated for at least twelve months and one day, and the court does not inquire into why.
What a divorce order does not do is anything financial. It does not transfer the house, split the superannuation, allocate the debts, or say a word about who the children live with. Those are separate applications under separate parts of the Act.
Why people conflate them
Because in ordinary speech "getting divorced" means the whole of it — the ending, the moving out, the dividing up, the paperwork. And because the divorce is the part that feels like the formal ending, so it is the part people go and do.
It is also the cheaper and simpler of the two on its face. One form, $1,170, no negotiation with anybody, and usually no hearing to attend.
The order they are done in matters
This is the part worth taking away. Under section 44(3), an application to alter property interests must be made within twelve months after a divorce order takes effect. Until then, there is no limitation period at all.
So a married couple who have separated and not divorced are under no property deadline whatsoever. The moment a divorce order takes effect — which is one month and one day after it is made — a twelve month clock starts.
Doing the divorce first therefore imposes a deadline on the harder half of the problem. It is a legitimate choice, and it should be a choice rather than an accident.
separated 12 months + 1 day → divorce applied for → order made → +1 month and 1 day: takes effect → 12 months to file on the property
You do not need a divorce to divide the property
A great many people separate, sort out the property, and never apply for a divorce at all — or apply years later when they want to remarry. Consent orders on the property can be filed at any time after separation, and there is no requirement to wait twelve months for them the way there is for a divorce.
In practice the property is the urgent part: it is the money, it is the house, and it is what stops two people being financially entangled. The divorce can wait, and often should.
Two fees, and they are a long way apart
| Application | Court fee | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Application for divorce | $1,170 | Ends the marriage. Divides nothing |
| Application for consent orders | $215 | Makes an agreed property division final and binding |
| Initiating application (financial, final) | $455 | Starts a contested property case |
Reduced fees are available on financial hardship grounds and for concession card holders. All fees are set under the Family Law (Fees) Regulations 2022 and indexed on 1 July each year; these are the 1 July 2026 figures.
The other thing a divorce quietly changes
A divorce order revokes a will's provisions in favour of a former spouse in most Australian jurisdictions, and separation on its own generally does not. A separated but not divorced person whose will still names their former spouse has a will that still names their former spouse.
The same goes for superannuation death benefit nominations, which are governed by the fund's rules rather than by a will, and which a separation does not touch at all. Both are worth reviewing at separation rather than at divorce, and neither is something a property settlement does for you.
Sort the property out first
The calculator gives you the range before the divorce application starts a clock on it — and the report sets out the order things usually happen in.
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About
Why this exists
You have separated. Somewhere in the next few months the two of you will divide everything you own between you, and whatever you sign will be final. It is very likely the largest financial decision either of you will ever make, it is being made in the worst few months of your life, and the one thing that would make it easier — a straight answer to "what is my share actually worth?" — is the one thing nobody will give you.
The rules are not secret. They are in sections 79 and 90SM of the Family Law Act 1975, rewritten by the Family Law Amendment Act 2024 and in force since 10 June 2025, and they are applied in several thousand published judgments a year. What they are not is usable. There is no formula in the Act — there is a discretion over a list of matters — so the answer lives in how those matters are weighed, and that is spread across a statute, a body of case law and a research literature that almost nobody separating has any reason to have read.
The Property Settlement Calculator does one thing: it applies those published rules to your figures, in the order the Act applies them, and shows you in full what they produce. Every factor sized in percentage points. What the range becomes if any one of them is wrong. Every way of settling priced on what actually reaches you after the cost of getting there. All of the working visible, so you can check it, argue with it, or take it to somebody who can. The answer is a range, because the law produces a range — a calculator that gave you a single number would be inventing a precision the Act does not have.
We do not tell you what to do. We are not licensed to, and frankly the arithmetic is the part people are missing — not the opinion. Here is what a family lawyer actually charges, and what each way of settling costs, if you decide you want that as well. For a contested matter it is money well spent, and this report is a better thing to walk into that appointment holding.
Privacy Policy
Short version: we hold as little as we can, we never ask for the identifiers that matter most, and the calculation runs on your own device. The long version is below, because you are entitled to it.
1. About this policy
This policy explains how XTO Pty. Ltd. (we, us, our) collects, holds, uses and discloses personal information, and how you can access, correct or complain about it. We handle personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) and the Australian Privacy Principles (APPs).
It applies to calculatedchoices.com.au and to every email we send you. It does not apply to any third party site we link to.
2. What we never collect
We do not ask for, and you should never send us, your Medicare number, tax file number, Centrelink Customer Reference Numbers, bank account numbers or court file numbers, bank account details or card number. The calculator does not need them. If you send one to us anyway we will delete it rather than store it.
We do not collect sensitive information as defined in the Privacy Act — health information, racial or ethnic origin, political or religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or criminal record. Where the calculator asks about care needs it asks about funding categories, never about a medical condition.
3. What we collect, and why
Information you give us
- Account details — first and last name, email address, and optionally phone, suburb, state, postcode and your relationship to the person entering care. Used to create and secure your account and to deliver what you bought.
- Saved reports — the figures you entered and the results produced, stored against your account only if you choose to save one. Used so you can return to and compare them.
- Purchases — the order, amount, currency, access period and the PayPal transaction reference. Used to grant access, issue receipts and meet our tax and record keeping obligations.
- Correspondence — what you write to us and our reply. Used to answer you and to resolve disputes.
- Email estimates and reviews — the email address you give us to receive a free estimate, and any review you submit for publication.
Information collected automatically
- Technical data — IP address, browser user agent, device type, screen and viewport size, and the referring page.
- Activity data — the pages you open, the order you open them in, time spent on each, how far you scroll, which calculator steps you complete, and which buttons you press. Used to understand where the site is confusing and to improve it.
- Advertising identifiers — where you arrive from an advertisement, the click identifier appended to the link (for example Google's gclid) and any campaign parameters, so we can measure which advertising works.
4. Where the calculation happens
In your browser, on your device. The figures you type into the calculator are processed locally to produce your result. They are transmitted to us only if you choose to save a scenario to your account. If you never save one, we never receive them.
Two exceptions, and both are things you have to choose to do:
- If you ask us to email your free estimate, the headline figure that estimate produced is stored with your email address so the estimate we send you is the one you saw.
- If you use the optional report assistant, the figures in the report you have open are sent to us and on to the service that answers it. That is the only part of this site that sends anything to a third party, and section 5 sets out exactly what does and does not travel.
5. The report assistant
A paid report comes with an optional assistant you can ask questions about your own figures. It is the one part of this site that sends anything to a third party, so it is set out here in full.
It is entirely your choice, and it does nothing until you use it. Nothing is sent anywhere unless you open the assistant and ask a question. If you never open it, this section does not apply to you at all, and the rest of the report works exactly the same.
What is sent when you do ask
- A plain-text summary of the figures in the report you have open — the amounts, categories and comparisons the report already shows you on screen.
- The question you typed, and the questions and answers already in that conversation, so a follow-up makes sense.
What is not sent
- Your name. The name field on the calculator is optional and is used only on your own report cover. It is not part of what the assistant is given.
- Your email address, your account, your phone number or your street address. The assistant is not told who you are, and is given no way to find out.
- Your Medicare number, tax file number, Centrelink Customer Reference Numbers, bank account numbers or court file numbers, bank account or card details — we never hold these in the first place. See section 2.
What travels is a set of amounts and categories. On its own it does not identify anybody, and we do not send anything alongside it that would.
Who processes it
The request is answered by Google's Gemini API, which processes it outside Australia — see sections 10 and 11. We do not train any model on your figures and we have no arrangement permitting anyone to do so; what Google does with data sent to its API is governed by its own terms, which we do not control.
How long it is kept
- The summary of your figures is held in our server's memory for one hour so a conversation does not have to re-send it with every question, and is then discarded. It is never written to our database.
- The conversation itself is stored in your own browser tab and is gone when you close that tab. We do not keep a copy.
- We record that a question was asked, and how long it was, so we know whether the feature is used. We do not record what it said.
Because the assistant is optional, you can have the entire paid report without any of the above ever happening. Nothing in the report is withheld from somebody who never opens it.
6. Cookies and browser storage
We use the following, and nothing else:
- An authentication cookie — set only when you sign in, so you stay signed in. Strictly necessary.
- A guest identifier — so a scenario saved before you register can be attached to your account when you do.
- A session key (browser session storage) — identifies one visit for the activity data described above. It is a random value and is discarded when you close the tab.
- A visitor key (browser local storage) — a random value kept for up to twelve months so we can tell a returning visitor from a new one. It contains no personal information and is not shared with anyone.
- Preferences — your light or dark theme choice.
You can clear or block these through your browser at any time. Clearing them will sign you out and reset your preferences; the site will otherwise work normally.
7. Analytics and advertising
We use Google Analytics and Google Ads to measure how people find and use the site and whether our advertising is worth running. Where these are enabled, Google receives your IP address, device and browser information, the pages you viewed, and — when you complete a purchase — the order reference and the amount paid. Google may set its own cookies and may combine this with data it holds from other sources. Google's handling of that data is governed by its own privacy policy, not ours.
We do not sell your personal information, and we do not disclose it to data brokers, advertising networks other than as described above, your former partner, their lawyer, or anybody else involved in your matter, or anyone who might try to sell you something.
You can opt out of Google Analytics using Google's browser add-on, and you can adjust personalised advertising in your Google account settings.
8. Payments
Payments are processed by PayPal. Your card or account details are entered on PayPal's systems and are never transmitted to, seen by, or stored on our servers. We receive only the transaction reference, the amount, the status and the email address associated with the payment.
9. Who we disclose information to
- Service providers who host the site, send our email and process payments, and only so they can perform that function.
- Google, as described in sections 5 and 7.
- Professional advisers — our accountants and lawyers, under obligations of confidence.
- A purchaser of our business, if it is ever sold, on terms that require them to honour this policy.
- Law enforcement, courts or regulators, where we are required or authorised by law.
10. Overseas disclosure
Some of these providers store or process data outside Australia, principally in the United States (Google, PayPal) and, depending on our email provider, in other countries. By using the site you acknowledge that we take reasonable steps to ensure overseas recipients handle your information consistently with the APPs, but that we cannot control and are not accountable for how an overseas recipient handles it once disclosed, and that you may not be able to seek redress in that jurisdiction.
11. Security
The site runs entirely over HTTPS. Passwords are stored as salted PBKDF2 hashes, not as text anyone here can read. Access to the database is restricted to those who need it. No system is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted over the internet, but we take reasonable steps to protect it from misuse, interference, loss and unauthorised access, modification or disclosure.
If a data breach occurs that is likely to result in serious harm, we will notify you and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner as required by the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme.
12. How long we keep it
- Account and saved reports — until you delete them or ask us to.
- Order and payment records — seven years, as required by Australian tax law. We cannot delete these earlier, even on request.
- Activity data — up to twenty‑six months, then deleted or aggregated so it no longer identifies anyone.
- Email leads — until you unsubscribe, then only the record needed to honour that unsubscribe.
13. Direct marketing
If you give us your email address for a free estimate we may follow up about the full report. Every commercial email we send identifies us and carries a functional unsubscribe link, as required by the Spam Act 2003 (Cth). We action unsubscribes immediately. You will still receive transactional email — receipts, access details and password resets — because those are not marketing.
14. Accessing, correcting and deleting your information
Write to support@calculatedchoices.com.au. We will:
- give you access to the personal information we hold about you, or explain why we cannot;
- correct anything inaccurate, out of date, incomplete, irrelevant or misleading;
- delete your account and every scenario attached to it, subject to the retention periods in section 12.
We will respond within 30 days and will not charge you for making a request. We may need to verify your identity first.
15. Complaints
If you think we have breached the APPs, write to support@calculatedchoices.com.au with "Privacy complaint" in the subject line. We will acknowledge within 5 business days and respond substantively within 30 days.
If you are not satisfied with our response, you may complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner: oaic.gov.au, 1300 363 992, or GPO Box 5288, Sydney NSW 2001.
16. Children
The site is intended for separated people working out what a property settlement is likely to be worth. It is not directed at children and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.
17. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy. The effective date at the top changes when we do. Where a change is material we will tell you by email or by notice on the site before it takes effect. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the updated policy.
18. Contact
Privacy Officer
XTO Pty. Ltd. (ACN [ACN NOT SET])
Level 1, 457 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
support@calculatedchoices.com.au
Terms of Service
Plain English, because the whole point is that you understand it. Section 6 is the one that matters most — please read it before you rely on anything here.
1. Agreement
By using calculatedchoices.com.au (the site) or buying a pass you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the site. In these terms we, us and our mean XTO Pty. Ltd.; you means the person using the site or, where you use it on behalf of another person or an entity, both you and that person or entity.
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter a contract. The site is intended for use in Australia and applies Australian law and the Family Law Act 1975 and the published research on settlement outcomes only. If you use it from outside Australia you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for local compliance.
3. What this service is
Property Settlement Calculator is an information and calculation service. It applies the Family Law Act 1975 and the published research on settlement outcomes to figures you supply and reports what those rules produce, showing its workings and naming the fee schedule used.
4. What it is not
It is not financial product advice, personal advice, legal advice, tax advice, accounting advice or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation to acquire, dispose of or deal in any financial product.
- We do not hold an Australian Financial Services Licence and are not authorised representatives of any licensee.
- We do not know your full circumstances, objectives, financial situation or needs, and nothing produced by the site takes them into account.
- Where the report ranks options it does so on a single arithmetic measure that deliberately ignores everything a number cannot capture — health, family circumstances, tax position, estate planning, how a court would exercise its discretion in your particular case, and what actually matters to you.
- We receive no commission and have no relationship with any your former partner, either side's lawyers, a mediator, an arbitrator or the court.
You should obtain independent, licensed advice before acting. Any decision you make is yours.
5. Accuracy and estimates
We take considerable care to keep the rates current and the formulas right, and every report prints the schedule it was built on. Even so:
- All output is an estimate based on the figures you entered. If those figures are wrong, incomplete or out of date, the output will be too.
- The actual division is decided either by an agreement you both sign and have made into orders, or by a judge exercising a discretion under the Family Law Act 1975. Nothing on this site is either of those. Those prevail over anything the site produces.
- Rates, thresholds and caps change by legislation and indexation, and legislation can change without notice or retrospectively.
- Projections rely on assumptions about the future — investment returns, indexation, home values, length of stay — which are inherently uncertain and will not be accurate.
Always confirm before you act.
6. Your responsibility for decisions
You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible for evaluating the output, for verifying it against official sources, for obtaining independent professional advice, and for every decision you make or do not make. We are not your adviser and no fiduciary or advisory relationship arises from your use of the site.
7. Accounts
You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for everything done under your account. Tell us immediately at support@calculatedchoices.com.au if you suspect unauthorised use. We may suspend or close an account we reasonably believe is being used in breach of these terms.
8. Passes, price and payment
- A pass grants access to the full report from the moment payment is confirmed, and it does not expire. It does not renew and nothing is charged automatically. There is no subscription and no card is kept on file.
- Prices are in Australian dollars and include GST where applicable. We may change prices at any time; the price shown when you buy is the price you pay.
- Payment is processed by PayPal under its own terms. We do not receive your card details.
- A pass is for personal or single household use. It is not transferable and may not be shared, resold or used to provide a service to others.
9. Reports you export
A report you export as a PDF or otherwise save remains yours to keep and to show to family, an adviser or family lawyer. That licence is personal and non‑commercial. It does not permit republication, resale, or use as part of a product or service you provide to others.
10. Refunds
Our promise: if the calculator cannot properly model your circumstances, or something has gone wrong, write to us within 14 days of purchase and we will refund the pass. No form and no argument. We would rather refund you than have you rely on a number that does not fit.
This is a voluntary commercial guarantee offered in addition to, and it does not limit, your rights under the Australian Consumer Law. Refunds are made to the original payment method within five business days of us accepting the request.
11. Acceptable use
You must not:
- scrape, crawl, harvest, mirror or systematically extract the site or its content;
- attempt to access the paid report engine, any account, or any data without authorisation;
- reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to derive the source of any part of the service;
- interfere with the site's operation or security, or impose an unreasonable load on it;
- resell, sublicense or commercially exploit the service or its output;
- use the site to provide financial, legal or placement advice to third parties; or
- use it unlawfully, or to infringe anyone's rights.
12. Intellectual property
All content, code, calculation methodology, report design, text and branding on the site is owned by us or licensed to us and is protected by copyright and other laws. Legislated rates and government data are not owned by anyone; our expression, arrangement and implementation of them is. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership to you.
13. Availability
We aim to keep the site available but do not guarantee it will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error free. We may modify, suspend or discontinue any part of it, and may perform maintenance, at any time. If we permanently discontinue the service while your pass is running, we will refund the unused portion.
14. Third parties
The site relies on third party services including PayPal, Google and our hosting and email providers, and links to third party sites and government resources. We are not responsible for those services or sites, their availability, their content or their terms.
15. Australian Consumer Law
Our goods and services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. For major failures with the service, you are entitled to cancel your service contract with us and to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If the failure does not amount to a major failure, you are entitled to have problems with the service rectified in a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to cancel your contract and obtain a refund for the unused portion of the contract.
Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy conferred by the Australian Consumer Law or any other law which cannot lawfully be excluded, restricted or modified. If any part of these terms would do so, that part does not apply.
16. Limitation of liability
Subject always to section 15, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:
- the site and its output are provided "as is" and "as available", and we exclude all warranties, conditions, guarantees and representations not expressly set out in these terms, whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including as to accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability and non‑infringement;
- we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive or consequential loss, or for any loss of profit, revenue, savings, opportunity, goodwill, data, anticipated benefit, or for any loss arising from a decision made or not made in reliance on the site, however arising and whether in contract, tort (including negligence), statute or otherwise, even if we were advised of the possibility;
- our total aggregate liability to you for all claims connected with the site or these terms is limited, at our election, to resupplying the service or to refunding the amount you actually paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose; and
- where liability cannot be excluded but can be limited, it is limited as set out above.
You agree that this allocation of risk is reasonable given the price of the service and that the service is information rather than advice.
Our liability is reduced to the extent your loss is caused or contributed to by you, including by entering incorrect figures, by failing to verify output against official sources, or by failing to obtain independent advice.
17. Indemnity
To the maximum extent permitted by law, you indemnify us against any claim, loss, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal costs) arising from your breach of these terms, your misuse of the site, or your provision of the site's output to a third party who relies on it. This does not apply to the extent the claim arises from our own breach, negligence or wilful misconduct.
18. Termination
You may stop using the site at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access immediately if you breach these terms. Sections 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19 and 20 survive termination.
19. Privacy
Our Privacy Policy forms part of these terms and explains how we handle personal information.
20. Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. You and we submit to the non‑exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales and the courts entitled to hear appeals from them.
21. General
- Changes. We may amend these terms. The effective date changes when we do, and material changes will be notified by email or on the site before they take effect. The terms in force when you bought a pass govern that purchase.
- Severability. If a provision is unenforceable it is read down to the minimum extent necessary, or severed, without affecting the rest.
- Waiver. A failure to enforce a right is not a waiver of it.
- Assignment. You may not assign these terms without our consent. We may assign them on a sale of the business.
- Entire agreement. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about the site.
22. Contact
XTO Pty. Ltd. (ACN [ACN NOT SET])
Level 1, 457 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010
support@calculatedchoices.com.au