Calabasas Probate Appraisals: Not Every Probate Sale Goes to the Judge
A petition for authority to administer an estate asks for one of two things, and the order granted one of them. Under full authority a sale of real property completes without a confirmation hearing and without an open overbid. Under limited authority the price is examined in court. The valuation has a different job in each case.
What the Order Already Decided
Two Procedures, One Property, and the Order Says Which
Most people administering an estate assume a judge looks at the sale price of the house. For a great many estates that is not what happens, and the document that decided it was signed before anyone thought about the property at all.
California’s Independent Administration of Estates Act lets a personal representative administer an estate without going back to court for each step. A petition asks for FULL AUTHORITY or LIMITED AUTHORITY, and the order grants one of them. Limited authority carries no power, without court supervision, to sell or exchange real property, to grant an option to purchase it, or to borrow money secured against it. Full authority does.
Under full authority a sale of the house is not presented to the court for confirmation at a hearing where higher bids may be offered. It completes on the strength of the price agreed. Nobody stands up and bids past it.
Where confirmation does apply, the court looks at the necessity for the sale, the advantage to the estate, the benefit to the people interested in it, and the efforts made to obtain the highest and best price. That is a different question being asked of the same number, and a number prepared without knowing which question is coming is a number prepared for neither.
We do not tell you which authority you have, and we do not advise you on getting a different one. That is your attorney’s work and your order’s answer. What we do is prepare a valuation that knows which job it has. Tell us what the number is for and we will confirm the scope in writing before any analysis begins.
Three Ways This Arrives
Three Executors, Three Different Procedures
One. The Order Is in the Drawer and Nobody Has Read It That Way
The letters came through, the estate is open, and the house has to be dealt with. The order is filed away as paperwork. It is not paperwork. It is the document that decides whether a price gets examined in open court, and it is worth knowing which one you are holding before you agree a figure.
Two. Full Authority, and Nobody Is Going to Check the Price
There is no hearing coming and no overbid. That is a lighter path and it is also a heavier responsibility, because the price stands on the work behind it rather than on a court’s examination of it. Beneficiaries can still ask how the figure was reached, and the answer should be a method rather than a memory.
Three. Limited Authority, and the Price Will Be Looked At
The sale goes to confirmation. The court will consider whether the sale was necessary, whether it advantages the estate, whether it benefits the people interested in it, and what was done to obtain the highest and best price. A valuation that anticipated that examination is a different document from one that did not.
How the Work Is Governed
What the File Has to Carry
Every assignment is performed under the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. Scope of work and intended use are agreed in writing before any analysis, and the report states both, because a valuation prepared for one purpose does not silently become evidence for another.
The appraiser is certified and independent of the outcome. We are instructed by executors, administrators and the attorneys who act for them, and we are not paid differently according to what the number turns out to be.
The file supports the figure. Comparable sales, the condition observed, the adjustments made and the reasoning are all recorded, so a question asked later, by a beneficiary, an attorney or a court, has somewhere to be answered from.
None of that is a selling point. It is the ordinary standard of the work, and a page that leads with it is telling you about itself rather than about your matter.
Where We Stop
Three Things We Will Not Tell You
Saying so costs us work occasionally. It is still the correct answer, and a valuation is worth more when the person who prepared it was willing to name the edge of their own competence.
What Gets Observed and Verified
Six Checks, and What Each One Establishes
One. Which Authority the Valuation Serves
Whether the sale will be examined at a confirmation hearing or completed without one. That is settled first because it governs what the report must be built to withstand, and it comes from the order rather than from us.
Two. The Effective Date the Figure Speaks To
In an estate the date the value attaches to is frequently not today. It is fixed in writing at the start, because a figure attached to the wrong date is wrong no matter how carefully it was reached.
Three. The Property, Inspected and Recorded
Condition, layout and improvements as they actually are, observed rather than remembered. Estates are often described from memory by people who have not lived in the house for years.
Four. The Parcel, the Permits and the Legal Description
Read from the public record rather than assumed from the building. What was permitted and what was built are two separate questions and both get asked.
Five. Closed Sales, Verified and Explained
What sold and closed, not what somebody asked for. A sale with unusual terms is understood before it is used, because an unexplained comparable is a hole in the file rather than support for it.
Six. The Adjustments, Written Down
The distance between each comparable and this property, stated in the report rather than absorbed into a conclusion. That is the part a later question lands on.
What to have ready before you instruct
The documents that make an estate assignment cleaner from the start.
Answers Before You Instruct
Questions Executors Actually Ask
Does every probate sale have to be approved by a court?
No. Where full authority has been granted under the Independent Administration of Estates Act, a sale of real property is not presented to the court for confirmation at a hearing where higher bids may be offered. Where authority is limited, it is.
How do I find out which authority I have?
It is stated in the order, and your attorney is the right person to read it with you. We will not interpret a court document for you, because your administration should not rest on our reading of it.
What is an overbid?
At a confirmation hearing the sale is presented to the court and higher bids may be presented there. A sale that has been agreed can be bid past in that setting. Under full authority there is no such hearing.
What does the court actually examine at confirmation?
The statute points to the necessity for the sale, the advantage to the estate, the benefit to the interested persons, and the efforts made to obtain the highest and best price. What any particular court will make of any particular matter is not something we can tell you.
Is the probate referee’s figure not enough on its own?
The referee is appointed by the court and their work is theirs. We do not argue against a court-appointed officer. What we provide is an independent appraisal prepared for a stated intended use, which is a different document prepared for a different purpose.
Does having full authority mean the price matters less?
It means the opposite in practice. With no hearing and no overbid, nothing external tests the figure, so the figure rests entirely on the work behind it and on the record that supports it.
Is an appraisal legally required in a probate?
We do not tell people what the law requires of them. What we can say is what an appraisal does: it establishes value for a stated purpose and creates a record of how that value was reached.
What does the estate need to provide before you begin?
Access to the property, the address and parcel, the effective date the valuation has to speak to, any permits or plans, and what the number is for. That last one shapes the assignment more than anything else on the list.
What if the matter is a straightforward valuation rather than a probate?
Then the assignment is a different one. Our Calabasas residential appraisal page covers that work in this same city.
What the Number Has to Survive
Four Reasons This Gets Asked For, and What Each One Demands
Estates also generate trust, inheritance and date-of-death valuations, and those are separate assignments with their own scope.
Attorneys, executors and fiduciaries handling this for an estate can reach us directly on (310) 955-1147.
A Sale Under Full Authority
Nothing outside the file examines the price. The number has to survive the questions of the people the estate is being administered for, which means the method has to be legible to somebody who is not an appraiser.
A Sale Going to Confirmation
The number has to survive an examination that includes what was done to obtain the highest and best price. The reasoning and the record matter as much as the figure.
A Filing or an Accounting
The number has to survive being read at a distance, later, by somebody with no memory of the property. The effective date and the assumptions have to be on the face of the report.
A Disagreement Between Interested Persons
The number has to survive a reader who would prefer a different one. That is a test of independence and documentation rather than of judgement.
Service Area
Calabasas and the Surrounding Communities
We appraise residential property throughout Calabasas and across Los Angeles County. If the estate holds property just outside, ask. The answer is usually yes.
Before You Instruct Anyone
Worth Reading First
Resource Hub
Guides on scope, intended use and what a valuation can and cannot establish.
What’s It Worth
How a property is valued, and why two figures for one property can both be correct for different purposes.
The Success Kit
What to gather before instructing anybody, whichever authority you hold.
Probate Appraisals Across the County
Where This Sits
Los Angeles Probate Appraisals Encino Probate Appraisal
Cities
Tell Us the Property and What the Number Is For
We will confirm the scope and the intended use in writing before any analysis begins, so the valuation is prepared for the job it actually has.
MICRO Scope and intended use confirmed in writing before any analysis. PHONE (310) 955-1147
