The Appraisal Values the House. It Does Not Divide It.
An appraisal answers one question: what is this property worth, as of a stated date. What that figure then means for two people, and how it is apportioned between them, is decided somewhere else and by other people.
The assignment, the people entitled to rely on the report and the fee are written down and agreed before anything begins. This page sets out what a divorce appraisal is for, what it settles, and the questions it leaves exactly where it found them.
Where the number stops and the division starts
One Property, One Date, One Opinion of Value
The Judicial Branch of California is direct about where a house sits in a dissolution. Describing property and debts, it says that the equity resulting from paying down the house loan is community property, and that the equity in the house is now part community and part separate property. Where the parties do not agree on how to divide community property, it says a judge will generally divide it equally.
Read that carefully and you can see what an appraisal is and is not. Every sentence in it is about character and division. None of it is about what the property is worth, because that is a different question with a different answer and a different person answering it.
So an appraisal establishes value. It does not decide whether a dollar of that value is community or separate. It does not apportion anything between two people. It does not decide who keeps the house or on what terms. Those are legal questions, and a report that pretended to settle them would be worth less than one that knows where it stops.
This matters more here than it might elsewhere because a mortgaged home is the ordinary case rather than the exception, and a loan paid down over the course of a marriage is precisely the situation the court is describing.
The other thing worth knowing early is that the date is not automatically obvious. The same source records that the two of you do not both have to agree on the date of separation. If a date has been specified for you, we work to it. If one has not, we will say what the assignment appears to turn on and leave the determination where it belongs. The Success Kit sets out what to have ready before the first conversation.
Three ways this lands on someone
Three Ways the Question Reaches Us
An attorney or mediator has asked for a value and given you a date
Somebody has told you what is needed and by when. You do not have to work out why. What you need is a report that answers the date you were given and states on its face what it relied on, so the person who asked for it can use it without qualification.
The two of you have agreed to share one appraiser
A single report used by both sides only works if both sides can follow it. That is not a matter of who commissions it or who pays. It is a matter of whether the evidence and the reasoning are set out where either of you can check them, which is how the report is written in any case.
You have been handed a figure and you do not know what to make of it
A number without its reasoning attached is difficult to assess and easy to distrust. What can be examined is the material behind it: which sales were used, what was adjusted, and on what basis. Whether the figure is then disputed is not an appraisal question.
What the opinion rests on
Written to Be Checked by Someone Who Did Not Order It
A report in a dissolution is read by people with opposite interests in the same figure. That is the ordinary condition of the work, not a complication in it, and it sets the standard the report has to meet: the reasoning has to be followable by whichever of them did not commission it.
So the report names its effective date, the purpose it was prepared for and the people entitled to rely on it. Which sales were used is set out. So is every adjustment and the reason behind it. Where something came down to judgment, the report says so rather than folding it into a total.
Appraisal practice in the United States has a written standard, and this work conforms to it. That is worth one sentence and no more: a report below that line should not be relied on by anybody, which makes meeting it a precondition rather than a credential.
Useful before you instruct anyone
A short guide to framing the assignment, locating the records that actually bear on it, and what to raise in the first conversation.
How the work is done, and where it stops
Plain Method, and the Point Where We Stop
The method is ordinary and the reasoning is visible. We establish what the value is for, fix the effective date from the instruction you were given, examine the property, select the evidence and show the adjustments. If a step rested on an assumption, the assumption is named in the report.
Some people arrive here having read that they should be careful what they say to an appraiser. It is worth answering that plainly. There is nothing you need to withhold and nothing you can say that moves the figure, because the figure comes from the evidence rather than from the conversation. The same is true in the other direction: nothing either of you tells us makes the number more favourable to one side. If that sounds like a limitation, it is the entire point of asking an appraiser rather than asking anyone else.
We will also tell you when this is not what you need. Some situations are answered by a much smaller piece of work, and some are not appraisal questions at all.
Here is the line. Whether equity is community or separate, how it is apportioned, what the date of separation is as a matter of law, who pays for what, whether a buyout works and what a judge is likely to do are legal questions. They are most of what people ask on a page like this, and they belong to your attorney. What an appraisal contributes is a supported opinion of value as of a stated date. What it decides is nothing beyond that.
What happens, and what settles the cost
Six Steps, Beginning With What the Value Is For
One. You tell us the property and what the value is being used for. A settlement discussion, a mediation, a filing, or an instruction from an attorney each point the assignment somewhere slightly different.
Two. We identify the effective date. If an attorney, a mediator or an order has specified one, that instruction governs and we work to it. If nobody has, we say what the assignment appears to turn on rather than choosing a date for you.
Three. The scope, the named users and the fee go into writing together. Work begins after that and not before. Naming the users at this stage rather than later matters here in particular, since a dissolution report is ordinarily read by more people than commissioned it.
Four. Only now is it worth gathering records. Prior appraisals, recent purchase or refinance information, a factual list of significant work with approximate dates, permits, plans, surveys, lease or occupancy details. What is actually needed follows from the scope, which is why chasing paperwork first is wasted effort.
Five. The property is examined, and market evidence is gathered and comparables chosen to match whichever date the assignment turns on.
Six. The finished report arrives with its date, its named users, its supporting material and its reasoning printed in it. None of that is held back to be supplied later if somebody asks.
The fee falls out of the first three steps. A single house with one clear purpose is not the same job as a property with a retrospective date and a thin surviving record, and the difference is priced before anyone starts.
San Bernardino divorce appraisal questions
What the Report Answers, and What It Leaves Alone
Can either of us refuse the appraised amount?
An appraisal is not an offer, so there is nothing in it to accept or refuse. It is a supported opinion of value as of a stated date, and its weight comes from the evidence and reasoning set out inside it. What either party does with it, whether it is challenged, and how any disagreement is resolved are matters for the parties and their advisors. If you think the reasoning is wrong, the report is written so that you can point to the part you disagree with.
Does the appraisal decide how the house is split?
No, and it is worth being clear about how far that goes. The report does not say what share belongs to whom, does not separate community equity from separate equity, and does not decide who keeps the property. The Judicial Branch of California describes equity in a house as potentially part community and part separate; sorting that out is legal work. The appraisal supplies the value the rest of it is reasoned from.
Can one appraiser act for both of us?
Frequently, yes. What makes a shared report workable is not an assurance of even-handedness but a document either of you can trace: comparables named, adjustments stated, reasons given. The engagement names who the client is and who is entitled to rely on the report, and that is settled in writing before the work starts rather than assumed afterwards.
What if we do not agree on the effective date?
That happens, and it is not ours to settle. The Judicial Branch of California records that the two of you do not both have to agree on the date of separation. Where an attorney, a mediator or an order specifies a date, we work to it. Where nothing has been specified, we will say what the assignment appears to turn on and leave the determination to the people whose determination it is.
Is there anything I should avoid saying to the appraiser?
No. Nothing you say moves the figure, because the figure comes from the evidence. What does help is factual information about the property: work that was done and roughly when, conditions that are not visible on the day, access arrangements. What does not help, in either direction, is an account of what the property ought to be worth.
We made improvements. Does that come straight off the value?
Not automatically. What was spent and what a property is worth are separate questions, and receipts establish that work happened rather than what it contributed. A factual list of what was done and approximately when is more useful than an estimate of what it should have added. If work was incomplete at the effective date, that matters and is worth saying.
Who is the client, and who is allowed to rely on the report?
These are two different things and both get written down at the start. The client is whoever engages the work. The intended users are those the report is prepared to be relied upon by, which in a dissolution frequently means an attorney and sometimes each party. That naming affects nothing about the figure and a great deal about who may properly put the document to use.
Who reads it, and what each one is testing
Four Readers With Different Reasons to Look Closely
The person who commissioned it wants something that can be relied on without having to defend a figure they cannot explain.
The other party is looking for signs the analysis was done for the property rather than for whoever paid. They may not have chosen the appraiser and they will read it hardest.
An attorney reads for whether the reasoning survives being disagreed with, and for whether the effective date and intended users are stated clearly enough to be used.
A mediator or a judge, where it reaches one, reads for whether the document stands on its own without anybody present to explain it.
Different reasons, one shared requirement. A reader who was never present for any of the work should be able to retrace it from the page.
The city, and the county around it
The Same Name Covers a City and a County
San Bernardino is a city and also the name of the county wrapped around it, and treating the two as one place produces the wrong comparison. Where a property sits decides which market it belongs to, and that is a question settled before any evidence is selected.
One ordinary fact about the housing here is worth stating because it shapes what the court’s description of equity actually applies to. Roughly two in three owner-occupied homes in the city of San Bernardino carry a mortgage, at about 68 percent, and across San Bernardino County the figure is close to it at about 70 percent. That is unremarkable, and unremarkable is the point: a loan being paid down over a marriage is the ordinary situation rather than an unusual one.
Assignments are taken throughout the city and the wider county. Redlands, Highland, Colton and Loma Linda are cities in their own right with markets of their own, and a property in one of them raises a different valuation question rather than the same one at another address.
Background worth having first
Three Things Worth Reading Before You Instruct Anyone
How a supported opinion of value is actually built
Background on what goes into a valuation, what the evidence has to do, and why a figure without its reasoning attached is worth less than it looks.
What an appraisal can and cannot settle
Where a supported opinion of value ends and where legal questions begin, written plainly rather than hedged.
Preparing for the first conversation
A short guide to framing the assignment and locating the records that bear on it.
If this is not your situation
Where the Better Answer Lives
If no dissolution is involved and you simply need to know what a property is worth now, the San Bernardino residential page covers which nearby sales belong in that comparison.
If the valuation is for an estate administered through the court, the San Bernardino probate page deals with what changes when the court’s reach and the property’s market are not the same thing.
If the property came to you at a death rather than through a dissolution, the San Bernardino inheritance page deals with a date well in the past, and the San Bernardino trust page with property held in a trust.
If the property is outside this county, the Los Angeles divorce page is the better starting point.
Tell Us What Is Being Valued, and As Of When
You do not need to know what the assignment requires before you get in touch. Tell us the property, what the value is being used for, and the date if one has been specified. We will tell you what the work involves, who it would be prepared for, and what it would cost. If a smaller piece of work answers your situation, we will say that instead.
