For attorneys
Independent valuation support
Estate, matrimonial and litigation assignments across six Northern New Jersey counties — written on the assumption somebody will be paid to pull them apart.
- Fee
- Quoted on request, in writing before the inspection is booked
- Turnaround
- 5 to 7 business days from inspection; rush available
- Delivery
- Counsel, the client, or both — whoever the engagement names
- Testimony
- A separate engagement, quoted separately
What this practice is
A residential appraisal practice organised around the assignments where the number gets contested or reviewed rather than filed. The effective date comes from the matter rather than defaulting to today, and your date is not queued behind a lender panel's volume.
Every report conforms to USPAP. The person who inspects the property is the person who signs the certification and answers for it later. That stops being an abstraction the day one adjustment has to be explained eighteen months after delivery.
Scope by matter type
The date moves with the matter, and it is the one thing most often ordered wrongly. Each entry below names the date that governs it and what the report has to support.
- Estate and date-of-death
- Dated to the death. The analysis is built on sales that closed around that date, not on today's market trended backwards. Written to support the New Jersey inheritance return and, where one is filed, a federal Form 706 — and to fix the beneficiaries' basis under IRC §1014 for whenever they eventually sell.
- Equitable distribution
- You supply the date — it is a legal determination and not mine to make. Joint or single-party retention, with an identical analysis either way. Where the date is still contested, the engagement can add a second one later at a reduced fee rather than running the whole assignment twice.
- Litigation generally
- Partition and dissolution, boundary and easement disputes, casualty claims, bankruptcy schedules. Scope is set against the intended use and stated on the face of the report. Every adjustment is built to stand alone, because one at a time is how an opposing expert takes them apart.
- Assessment appeals
- Valued as of October 1 of the pretax year, not as of today, and only worth commissioning once the assessment has been tested against the district ratio — an owner inside the statutory corridor loses with an accurate appraisal in hand.
- Retrospective dates
- Any date already gone: a death, the day before a casualty loss, a date fixed by the pleadings. Developed only from what the market knew at the time, with later sales used to corroborate a trend and never to reach the conclusion.
Independence, stated plainly
The USPAP ethics rule requires impartiality, objectivity and independence, and prohibits accommodating any party's interests — the interests of whoever settles the invoice very much included. Concretely:
- No fee turning on the value reached, on which way the opinion falls, or on how the matter finishes.
- No advocacy. The analysis is explained and defended at whatever length is needed. Your case is not argued from the box by an appraiser, and an appraiser who tries damages it.
- No second capacity on the property, in any matter. This is an appraisal practice only — no brokerage arm, no interest in a sale, no commission at the end of anything. There is nothing for opposing counsel to find on cross because there is nothing there.
An opposing expert asks about all three before anything else, so they are stated here rather than left to be turned up.
On testimony
Deposition and testimony fall outside the appraisal engagement and carry their own quote. Raise it early rather than when it becomes urgent. What binds is the calendar, not the analysis.
Whether any appraiser is qualified as an expert in any particular matter is the court's determination, made on the record before it. Nobody can promise it in advance, and an appraiser who advertises otherwise has told you something useful about the care behind their other claims.
What goes in the file
The measurement, every comparable sale with its adjustments itemised, and the reasoning tying those to the conclusion. Adjustments are itemised rather than summarised, so anybody wanting to disagree with the arithmetic can follow it and point at the line.
Living area comes off the site measurement. Where that measurement disagrees with the assessment record — and in this housing stock it very often does — the report carries both figures and states which one the analysis used. That gap is frequently what the matter turns on.
FAQ
What counsel usually asks
Will you accept instruction from both sides?
Yes, and a joint retention is usually both the cheaper route and the quieter one — one figure that both parties are arguing from removes an entire category of dispute before it starts. Where each side retains separately, nothing about the analysis changes: the USPAP ethics rule requires impartiality and independence regardless of who engages or who pays the invoice. Retention settles who my client is and who is entitled to the report. It settles nothing else.
What do you need from us before starting?
The intended use and the intended users, because USPAP requires both identified before scope can be set at all. The effective date — or confirmation that it is still being argued over. Access arrangements, including who controls them. Any discovery or filing deadline. And any earlier appraisal of the property — particularly the one you would rather I did not see, which is reliably the one that decides the matter.
Can the scope be limited to keep the cost down?
Scope can be tailored, and once tailored it must be disclosed on the report. What cannot happen is a scope narrowed quietly, because that is precisely what opposing counsel finds and opens with. Where the budget is fixed, tell me and you will get a straight answer about whether what is left still supports the intended use — including the answer that it does not, which is worth hearing before rather than after.
How do you handle confidentiality?
The USPAP ethics rule imposes confidentiality over both assignment results and confidential information. The report reaches the intended users named in the engagement letter and nobody else without written instruction. In practice that extends to declining to confirm to a third party that the assignment exists at all, which occasionally annoys people and is not negotiable.
What are the fee terms in a contested matter?
Fixed, and agreed in writing before any work starts. Never contingent on the value reached, on which way the opinion falls, or on how the matter resolves — each is prohibited, and each is among the first things an opposing expert will ask about on the record. Deposition and hearing testimony fall outside the appraisal engagement and carry their own quote.
Next step
Send the matter type and the deadline
Scope, fee and turnaround come back in writing. Where an appraisal is the wrong instrument, or the date you were given does not match the purpose you described, you will hear it before an engagement letter goes out.