"They offered me 40%. Is that fair?"
A number has been said out loud and now it just sits there. You can't tell if it is reasonable, and finding out usually costs money you had not planned to spend.
Your full access is on
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
Key dates and court fees
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 and help
Access and ordersSeparated? Know your number before you sign anything.
Don't lose over $110,000. Our free property settlement calculator shows your likely share on your own figures, so you can see your choices before a bad decision costs you.
You have separated. Maybe a number is already on the table, and you can't tell if it is generous, unfair or about right. Your ex's lawyer won't tell you. The internet mostly says "it depends". And once consent orders are signed, they are final.
A family lawyer charges $440 to $660 an hour to work out your range, once you can get an appointment. This calculator does it in about six minutes. It runs the four steps in the Family Law Act on your own figures, and shows what is pushing your share up or down.
- Free estimate. No card, no sign up
- Full report $19, paid once. Lawyers charge $2,000 or more just to draw up consent orders
- Built on the Family Law Act rules in force from 10 June 2025
30 second check
Five quick answers. Your rough share.
$
$
$
-
Your share of the pool
-
at the bottom of the range
Where you land in that range is worth about
$-
-
A rough guide only. It splits the super evenly and assumes nobody brought anything in at the start. The full calculator asks about both, and either one can move the answer a long way.
Sound familiar?
Confused by the property rules?
That is not your fault.
The rules are public, but there is no formula. The answer is left to a judge's judgement, spread across one Act and thousands of court decisions. No official document turns it into a number for you.
"What on earth is a section 75(2) factor?"
Contributions. Future needs. Just and equitable. Add-backs. Each one is real and has real money attached. Each one is written in words nobody uses outside a courtroom.
"Everyone tells me something different."
Your sister got 70%. A friend at work says it is always half. Someone online says super doesn't count. Super has counted since 2002, half is not the rule, and your sister's case is not yours.
"If I sign this, is it final?"
Yes, and that is the point. Consent orders are final. You can't find out the range afterwards and change your mind, so the time to know it is before you sign.
So we built the missing piece.
You enter what the two of you own, owe and earn. We run the four steps the Family Law Act sets out, size every factor in percentage points, and give you your range. No appointment, no retainer, no letter in a fortnight, and nobody calls you.
The court won't work it out for you
A registrar only checks that a split you have already agreed is within the just and
equitable range. Working out your range is not their job, and they won't do it.
Your ex's lawyer won't tell you
They act for your former partner. They must disclose the finances, but their job is
to do the best they can for the person paying them. That is not you.
A family lawyer will, at $440 to $660 an hour
For a case that is being fought, that is the right call. But most people want to
know the range before they decide if there is anything to fight about, and nobody
sells just that.
About six minutes. Free, no card. Know your number before anyone asks you to sign.
What guessing can cost
Same house. Same super. Same rules.
Two very different results.
Take one example couple. Married for eighteen years, two children at home. One partner is back at work part time on $55,000. The other earns $130,000. Once the house is sold and the debts are paid, the pool is -.
Split it 50/50
They agreed on half because it sounded fair
- Nobody added up the pool, so the super was never even discussed
- Years of unpaid work at home were never counted as a contribution
- They skipped the future needs step, because nobody told them it existed
- They filed consent orders, and consent orders are final
What half is worth
-
Ran the four steps
They worked out their range first
- They valued the whole pool, super included, before anyone named a number
- They counted contributions across all eighteen years, paid and unpaid
- Income, age and caring for two children were weighed at the future needs step
- Their range came out at -, and talks started from there
The centre of that range
-
Same pool. Same rules. One of them signed for this much less.
-
Even once you know your range, there is still -
between the bottom and the top of it, and negotiation decides where you land.
Nobody cheated. There is no 50/50 starting point in the Family Law Act, and the first
couple never saw the four steps that give the real answer.
Your own range is free. The full report, with every factor sized, costs $19.
That household is an example, not a real case. The figures beside it are worked out live on this page by the same engine the paid report uses. The method is real: section 79 of the Family Law Act 1975 as rewritten on 10 June 2025, applied in the order the Act applies it.
Your options
Three ways to find your range.
Only one takes six minutes.
| Guess what most people do |
A family lawyer an advice meeting |
This calculator right here, tonight |
|
|---|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Nothing now, sometimes six figures later |
$440 to $660 an hour | $19 |
| How long it takes | An afternoon of worry | An appointment, then a letter | About six minutes |
| Shows what each factor is worth | Usually explained, rarely itemised | ||
| Advice on your own case | |||
| Shows all the working | Usually not |
Deadlines
Three dates that can decide this for you
Property settlement runs on deadlines. Miss one and the choice can be made for you. These are not our deadlines. They are in the Act and the court fee rules, and you can check all three yourself.
Not married? You have 2 years
Section 44(5). You have two years from the day the relationship broke down. The clock starts at separation, not when any paperwork is signed. After that you need the court's permission to apply at all, and it is not given as a matter of course. Agreeing does not stop the clock. Only filing something does. Read the time limit rules.
Married? 12 months after the divorce
Section 44(3). There is no deadline at all until a divorce order takes effect. Then you have exactly twelve months. So applying for the divorce before the property is sorted out starts a clock that did not exist before. The divorce is a completely separate application with its own fee of -, and it divides nothing.
1 July: every court fee changes
The Family Law (Fees) Regulations 2022 index every court fee on 1 July each year. The figures in this report use the - schedule. A defended case that runs past a 1 July costs more after it: the setting down fee, the daily hearing fee, all of it. It changes the cost of every route and none of the percentages.
What you get
The Property Settlement Report: see exactly what moves your share
The free estimate gives you your range and names the parts of the law that apply to you. The full report shows how big each one is, what happens if one is wrong, and what every way of settling actually leaves you. All on your own figures, with the working shown so you can check it or challenge it.
Free: your range, both ends
- Your pool, itemised, super included
- Your share as a percentage range, both ends
- Which legal factors apply to you, by name
- What your range is worth in dollars
- Every way of settling, named, with what each costs
Full report, $19: what moves your number
- Every factor sized in percentage points, and which way it pushes
- The path from a 50/50 split to your number, step by step
- What your range becomes if any one factor is wrong
- Every way of settling ranked by what you actually keep
- The offer at which accepting beats arguing on
- Your share compared with published Australian settlement research
- The assistant, on your own figures, with no limit
- The whole report as a PDF you can print, charts included
See a full sample report, free. It is an example household run all the way through, with the open half shown exactly as a customer sees it. You can ask the assistant two questions about it.
How it works
Get your settlement range in 3 simple steps
If you can read a bank statement, you can do this. Simple mode asks only the questions that decide most of the answer. Detailed mode also asks about money either of you brought in, inheritances, and anything deliberately lost, which can move a range a long way.
Enter what you both own, owe and earn
The house and what is owing on it, savings, debts, both super 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 the figures you type are saved only so your result is waiting when you come back.
See your range free, straight away
Your pool itemised, your share as a percentage range with both ends, and every part of the law that applies to you, named. It is a real answer on its own, and it costs nothing.
Unlock what is moving your number
$19 opens the full report: every factor in percentage points, what your range becomes if one is wrong, and every way of settling ranked by what you keep. PDF included, ready to take to a lawyer.
Based 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.
All the working, shown
No black box. Every percentage point in the report shows the factor behind it, the section of the Act it comes from, and a sentence explaining it.
Not legal advice. We say so upfront.
We are not lawyers and we are not licensed to tell you what to do. The Act has no formula, only a discretion. That is why the answer is a range, not a single number.
Your money back if it can't model your situation
If the calculator can't properly model your situation, or something goes wrong, tell us within 14 days and we'll refund you. No forms, no argument.
Included with the report
Stuck on a word or a number?
Just ask.
Every report comes with an assistant that has read your report: your pool, your factors, your range. It answers your questions in plain English, from your own figures. It is not a search box or a help page.
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 on these figures it moved the answer four times further than contributions did.
An example of the kind of answer it gives, on the sample report's figures.
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It has read 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 confusing subject 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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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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Your chat is not 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 give advice. 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. That is the same line the report itself holds. Nothing here is legal advice.
Price
Costs less than one hour with a family lawyer
One payment. No expiry, nothing to renew, and we never keep your card. It opens the whole report and lets you run your figures again as often as you like. That matters, because valuations change, offers change, and both change your number.
If it can't model your situation, you get your money back.
If the calculator can't properly model your situation, or something goes wrong, tell us
within 14 days and we'll refund you. No forms, no argument.
Prices in Australian dollars. Paid securely through PayPal: card or PayPal balance, no account needed. See a sample report before you decide.
FAQ
Property settlement questions, answered simply
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 very different households, which is why a range worked out on your own figures tells you more than either.
It is worked out 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. First, value everything you both own and owe. Second, assess what each of you contributed. Third, look at where each of you stands now and in the future. Fourth, check the result is just and equitable. There is no formula, so the answer is a range, not one number.
Yes. Superannuation goes into 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 super and stays locked up under the usual rules. A couple who split the house evenly and each keep their own super have divided only part of the pool.
It can. 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, such as controlling money or superannuation, sabotaging employment or building debt in somebody else's name, as examples of family violence.
Two years from the day you separated if you were in a de facto relationship, under section 44(5). If you were married, there is no deadline until a divorce order takes effect, and then twelve months from that day, under 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.
No. A divorce ends the marriage but divides nothing, and consent orders on the property can be filed at any time after separation. The order matters, though. Once a divorce order takes effect, a married couple has twelve months to apply for property orders, so applying for the divorce first starts a clock that did not exist before. The divorce is a separate application with its own court fee of $1,170.
Nobody gets the house automatically, and it does not simply go to the person whose name is on the title. The house is one asset in the pool. Who keeps it mostly depends on whether either of you can afford to refinance the mortgage in one name and pay the other out, and on what the children need. That is a separate question from what percentage of the pool each of you is entitled to.
An inheritance usually goes into the pool, but it counts as a contribution by the person who received it. It is not automatically theirs to keep, and it is not simply shared either. When it arrived and what happened to it matter most. Money that came in early and went onto a mortgage you both paid down for years has been largely absorbed. An inheritance received after separation is usually left almost entirely with the person who received it.
Almost exactly. De facto couples are dealt with under section 90SM rather than section 79, and since 10 June 2025 the two read almost identically. Two things differ. You must first pass a gateway test in section 90SB, and you have two years from the end of the relationship to apply. In Western Australia, de facto property matters are dealt with under the state's Family Court Act 1997 instead.
Since 10 June 2025 the Family Law Act deals with pets directly. A court can order that a companion animal belongs to one of you, is transferred, or is sold. It cannot order shared time with a pet. It looks at things like who bought it, who cared for it, any family violence or cruelty, and how attached the children are. Deciding who keeps a pet does not change the percentage split of everything else.
Yes. The law recognises separation under one roof. What matters is whether the relationship ended, not whether somebody moved out. A court looks at things like whether you still share a bedroom, whether your finances have been separated, and whether family and friends have been told. The date matters, because it starts real deadlines, such as the two year limit for de facto couples.
It depends mostly on the route you take. Filing consent orders costs a court fee of $215, and published fixed legal fees for drawing them up run from about $2,000 to $4,400 per party. A contested case that goes to a final hearing is on another scale, with published cost guidance of $25,000 to $80,000 a side. Court fees are published and exact. Legal costs are not.
It shows every factor as a number of percentage points, so you can see what is moving your range and by how much. It prices up to nine ways of settling, from consent orders through to a final hearing, on what reaches you after the cost of getting there. It also works out the offered percentage at which accepting beats pursuing, so you can see whether spending $25,000 to argue on would leave you ahead.
Because the four steps are 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 a lawyer gives you that this does not is advice on your own case from somebody licensed to give it.
You only get to sign this once.
Consent orders are final. So is a binding financial agreement. You can't find out your range afterwards and go back. That is the whole point of them, and it is why it pays to know your number before you sign. Six minutes now is the cheapest six minutes of the whole process.
No card. No sign up. Your range on the next screen.
Nobody is going to hand you your range. You can work out your own in about six minutes.
Work out 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: the pool, contributions, future needs, and a final fairness check. It gives you a range, because a range is what the law produces.
Let's work out your range. Your answers stay on this device, and you can stop at any point.
Step 1
Just started
Rules as at -.
Your free estimate
Your settlement range
The parts of the law that apply to you
What the full report adds
Where you land in your range is worth $0
Your range is free and it is on this page. What you have not seen is how much each part of the law moves it.
A family lawyer working out your range
$440 to $660 an hour
At stake on your figures
-
This report, once
$19
Get the full report: every factor sized, and the offer where arguing stops paying
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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.
If it can't model your situation, you get your money back.
If the calculator can't properly model your situation, or something goes
wrong, tell us within 14 days and we'll refund you. No forms, no argument.
Not deciding today?
Email this estimate to yourself, free
Your range, your pool and a link back to your figures, so you can pick this up later or show someone you trust. The subject line does not mention separation, so nothing shows on a lock screen.
Your estimate now, then three short follow-ups over the next week, and we stop. Unsubscribe in one click. We never sell your address.
Before you sign anything
Know your number before anyone asks you to sign
Sign at 40% when your range is 55% to 65%, and you cannot take it back: consent orders are final. Spend $25,000 at a hearing to win back less than that, and you end up behind even if you win. The full report shows how much each factor moves your share, and the offer below which each way of settling is still worth what it costs.
If it can't model your situation, you get your money back.
If the calculator can't properly model your situation, or something goes wrong, tell us
within 14 days and we'll refund you. No forms, no argument.
See a sample report before you buy.
Questions before you buy
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, only a discretion. That is why the answer is a range, not 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 lawyers, we are not licensed to give legal or financial advice, and we never tell you which option to pick. We apply the published rules to the figures you enter and show you what they produce, with all the 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: unlock your full report
Pay once and your full report opens straight away, on the figures you already entered. Nothing renews and no card is kept on file.
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Example households
9 property settlement examples, fully worked out
Nine separated people, invented but ordinary, run through the same engine as the paid report. No figure on this page is typed in: the calculator works each one out when the page loads, so it cannot go out of date. Some of them stand to lose tens of thousands by assuming half, several of them six figures. Others have nothing worth spending money to argue about.
2 things to know before you read these
1
There is no starting point of half. Anywhere.
People say "it's 50/50" as if it were a law of nature. 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 can move your share the 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 often move the answer more 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.
Your figures will give a different answer
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. About six minutes, free, no card.
Your options, side by side
Every way of settling Jo's pool, and what she keeps from each one after its cost. Same pool, same facts. What changes is how far it goes and what that costs. Open Show Details on any of them. The panels work on this page.
The short version
The four steps in s 79 of the Family Law Act 1975, as they have stood since 10 June 2025, run on Jo's figures.
Her range
60–70%
of a $936,240 pool
In dollars
$561,744
at the bottom, $655,368 at the top
Between the two ends
$93,624
settled by negotiation, not by a rule
Her range is 60% to 70%. On a pool of $936,240, that is $561,744 at the bottom and $655,368 at the top. The four steps put the centre of her range at 65.0%. An even split would be $468,120, which is $140,599 less than the centre of her range ($608,719).
She has been offered 47%, which is $440,033. That is $121,711 below the bottom of her range, and $215,335 below the top.
Step 1: what is in the pool
Everything they both own, less everything they both owe. It is one pool, not two piles: whose name something is in does not decide whether it counts.
| 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 selling the home | $965,000 |
| Less agent commission at 2.65% on $840,000 | −$22,260 |
| Less marketing and conveyancing on the sale | −$6,500 |
| The pool you are sharing | $936,240 |
How we got to her percentage
Start at equal. Then adjust for what each of them contributed (step 2), then for where each of them stands now and in future (step 3), then check the whole result is fair (step 4). Since 10 June 2025 these steps are written into the Act itself (s 79(3)).
Step 2, what each of them contributed: +3.0 points, to 53.0%. s 79(4). Money, work on the home, and caring for the family all count, and the Act treats unpaid work at home as able to count as much as a pay packet. That is why a couple with one earner and one homemaker usually comes out at or near equal here.
Step 3, where each of them stands now and in future: +12.0 points. s 79(5) (lawyers often still call these the "section 75(2) factors"). Age, health, income, what each of them can earn from here, and the children and their housing. Here it moved the answer four times further than step 2 did.
How much each factor moved her share
Each factor in the Act that applies to Jo, in percentage points. A plus moves her share up. A minus moves it towards her former partner.
| 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 |
Every way of settling, drawn to scale in dollars
Every row except accepting the 47% offer is worked out at the centre of Jo's range, 65.0%, because no way of settling can be shown to get a better percentage than another. What changes between them is the cost.
Unlock 8 more sections and the 7 charts in them
- 07What each way of settling costs
- 08When it is worth pushing for more
- 09What the range becomes if a factor is wrong
- 10How it compares with other Australian settlements
- 11The range in dollars
- 12Who ends up with what, at each end
- 13Is the result fair overall
- 14Your deadline, and what usually happens next
Everything above is real arithmetic on a made up household. Run yours free, and the full report opens this half 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 been used already. If you still get emails, contact us and we will stop them.
Free guides
Property settlement guides: plain English answers
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. That is the part the official pages leave out, because they are written for people who already know.
Reading helps. Knowing your own range before anybody names a figure helps more.
What moves the number
Can Your Ex Claim Your Inheritance in a Divorce?
An inheritance or a substantial gift is treated as a contribution by the person who received it. It does not sit outside the pool, it is not automatically theirs to keep, and it is not simply shared. What decides its weight is when it arrived and what happened to it afterwards.
Why inheritance fights get so heated
Nothing in a property settlement generates heat like family money. One side is certain that what their mother left them has nothing whatever to do with a marriage that has just ended. The other side is certain that money which paid off the family mortgage is family money. Both positions feel obvious from where they are standing.
The law is more settled than the argument suggests. An inheritance or a substantial gift is a contribution made by or on behalf of the party who received it - a financial contribution under section 79(4). It goes into the pool with everything else, and the recipient gets credit for having brought it in. How much credit depends almost entirely on timing.
Does it matter when you got the inheritance?
Yes, a lot. Early in the relationship. Treated much like an initial contribution: it counts, and its weight erodes as the years of joint effort accumulate on the other side. Money that came in nineteen years ago and went onto a mortgage both parties then paid down for nineteen years has been thoroughly absorbed.
Late in the relationship. Considerably stronger. The other party has had little time to contribute to whatever it bought, and the closer it is to the end the more it looks like money that arrived from outside and stayed outside.
After separation. Stronger again, and usually left almost entirely with the person who received it. The other party contributed nothing to it and shared in none of it. It is still in the pool - the pool is valued at the date of division - but as a contributions matter it is very nearly quarantined.
There is one qualification worth knowing on that last case. Post-separation money can still be relevant at the future needs step, because a party who has just received $300,000 is in a materially different financial position from one who has not, and section 79(5) asks about exactly that. Quarantined as a contribution is not the same as invisible.
Does it matter what you did with the money?
Yes. The same distinction as with any initial contribution, and it does most of the work in practice.
- Money that went onto the family mortgage, or into a renovation, or towards the children's school fees, has been mixed into joint life. The recipient still gets credit for it; the credit is smaller because both parties then serviced, maintained and benefited from what it bought.
- Money that went into a separate account nobody touched, or an asset in one name that the other party never used, is a far stronger argument - because there is no joint contribution sitting on top of it.
- Money that was spent on living is gone. It was a real contribution, and there is nothing left to point at.
What about an inheritance you haven't received yet?
An inheritance that has not happened is generally not property. A person who is expected to inherit has no legal interest in their parent's estate while the parent is alive, and a court cannot divide something nobody owns.
What it can be is a financial resource - something a party is likely to have access to, relevant at the future needs step under section 79(5). The distinction is sharper than it sounds. A pool is divided; a financial resource is taken into account. And an expectancy that is genuinely imminent and genuinely certain is treated differently from one that depends on somebody's health, their will, and the next fifteen years.
Was money from your parents a gift or a loan?
This one is worth getting right, because it changes which side of the ledger the money sits on entirely. If a parent gave the couple $80,000 for a deposit, it is a contribution - usually attributed to the child of the giver, though a gift genuinely made to both is treated as made to both. If a parent lent it, it is a liability and it comes off the pool before anybody divides anything.
Families routinely fail to write any of this down, and then produce a loan agreement dated some time after the separation. A court looks at what actually happened: whether anything was ever repaid, whether any interest was ever charged, whether it was ever mentioned before things went wrong. An arrangement that nobody treated as a loan for eleven years is a difficult loan to establish now.
What to gather about the inheritance
Written as the general process rather than as instructions.
- The evidence is assembled: the grant of probate, a statement showing the money arriving, the transfer that shows where it went.
- The date it arrived is established, because that decides more of the answer than the amount does.
- The money is traced as far as the records allow, from the estate to whatever it eventually bought.
- Where a family loan is asserted, the contemporaneous documents are what matter - not a document created after the separation.
See how much your inheritance moves your share
The detailed mode asks who received it and when, and the report sizes it in percentage points alongside every other factor - including what your range becomes if it were left out altogether.
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About us
Why we built a property settlement calculator
You have separated. Some time 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 often the largest financial decision a person ever makes, it comes at one of the hardest times 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, only 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 ranked by what you keep after costs. 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 lawyers, we are not licensed to give legal advice, and the arithmetic, not the opinion, is usually the part people are missing. 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