Whittier Divorce Appraisals for a Household Dividing One Asset
You need a value for a property that two people have to divide. This page explains how that value is established in Whittier and what the report can and cannot settle.
We are instructed to produce an independent opinion of value for a stated assignment. We do not act for either party, whichever of you makes contact, and that is the whole basis on which a figure in a dissolution is worth anything.
Tell us the property, the effective date and who will rely on the report. Nothing else is needed to begin a conversation.
What Is Usually Being Divided
Fifty-One Percent of Households Here Are Married Couples
Read together they describe a city where the ordinary household is a married couple who own the roof over them. That is unusual against the county and it is the reason this page exists in the form it does.
A figure carrying that much has to rest on evidence neither party selected. The sales it is measured against are chosen for their likeness to the subject and for nothing else.
Where the property has changed since that date, the change is identified and reasoned rather than ignored, and the report says how.
A HOUSEHOLD THAT OWNS ITS HOME
That number describes the city you live in, not the property you are dividing. 51.1 percent of Whittier households are married-couple families, against 43.6 percent across Los Angeles County, and 58.5 percent of occupied homes here are owner-occupied against 46.1 percent.
NEITHER OF YOU CHOSE THE COMPARABLES
Where the home is the largest thing being divided, the appraisal stops being one input among several. It becomes the number the rest of the arrangement is built around, and it will be read closely by two people whose interests point in opposite directions.
EVERYTHING SINCE THE DATE IS SET ASIDE
The report speaks to an effective date, and that date is instructed rather than chosen by us. Work done to the property afterwards, and the market that moved afterwards, sit outside the analysis by definition.
THERE ARE THINGS WE CANNOT ANSWER FROM HERE
Whether a property is community or separate, how a court will treat it, and what either of you should agree to are questions for lawyers. An appraisal that answered them would be guessing in a signed document that two advisers are going to read.
How the Work Arrives
How the Instruction Reaches Us
ONE OF YOU CALLED, THE OTHER DID NOT
Someone has decided to find out what the property is worth, often before the other person knows. Calling first buys nothing. The assignment, the date and the evidence would be identical if the other had called instead, and the report is written so that fact is visible in it.
BOTH OF YOU, INSTRUCTING TOGETHER
Two people who have agreed to use one appraiser, to keep the cost down and to avoid a second opinion arriving to contradict the first. This is the cleanest version of the assignment and it is common.
A LAWYER ORDERING IT FOR SOMEONE ELSE
A family law attorney or a mediator instructing on a client’s behalf, who already knows what a retrospective opinion is and is checking whether this one will survive being read by the other side.
What Holds It Up
What a Figure of This Weight Has to Do
A NUMBER BOTH SIDES CAN TAKE APART
The report is written to be examined by somebody who would prefer a different answer. That is not a defensive posture, it is the only test that matters for a figure two people have to divide something by.
THE PRICE IS AGREED IN ADVANCE AND DOES NOT MOVE
The price, the scope, the date and who may lean on it are agreed in writing first, and none of them moves afterwards. A fee that varied with the figure would make the figure worthless.
THE SALES ARE SHOWN WITH THEIR ADJUSTMENTS
Each sale we leaned on is set out with its date and every adjustment made to it, so an objection can be aimed at a specific line rather than at the total.
THERE IS A NAME AT THE END OF IT
The person who signed it can be asked about it later, and their licence number sits on the same page as their name. A firm cannot answer a question; a person can.
EVERY FIGURE HAS A SOURCE BESIDE IT
Facts taken from a document are shown with the document beside them, and facts taken from one of you are shown as exactly that, with the name of whoever supplied them and a note that it was not independently verified.
What Helps If You Have It
The Success Kit is a short checklist: the property and access details, the effective date and who has instructed it, prior appraisals, permits and plans, renovation dates and scope, and any known easements or access issues. It also lists four questions worth having answers to before you make contact. It is a guide to what helps and not a list of requirements.
How We Work
Doing It Properly Takes Longer
An adjustment nobody can see is an adjustment nobody can challenge, and in a dissolution that is the same as not having made it.
Most of what this work costs is the part that never appears in the conclusion: the sales we looked at and set aside, and the reason each one was set aside. We write that down because a figure two people are dividing a home by will be read by somebody who did not commission it.
The Sequence
Somebody Else Sets the Date, Not Us
SOMEBODY INSTRUCTS THE DATE AND WE RECORD IT
An attorney, another professional or the court specifies the effective date the value must speak to. Where you have been given that instruction, we take it exactly as given and record it in the assignment.
NOBODY RELIES ON IT BY ACCIDENT
Whoever is entitled to lean on this report is named inside it, and anybody not named is told so plainly. Reliance is a thing the report grants deliberately rather than something a reader can assume by holding a copy.
COMPARABLE SALES FROM THAT PERIOD ARE GATHERED
Sales that closed near the instructed date are pulled and tested for likeness to the subject as it then stood, not as it stands now.
WE READ WHAT YOU SEND BEFORE WE ARRIVE
Whatever you send is read first, so the visit confirms a picture instead of starting one.
SEEING THE HOUSE FOR OURSELVES
The property is walked and photographed as it stands today, which is the only fixed point any earlier date can be reasoned from.
THE REASONING IS WRITTEN OUT AND DELIVERED
The analysis is reconciled, the adjustments are set down, and the opinion is delivered as of the instructed date to the users named in it.
Straight Answers
Plain Answers to the Questions People Ask Us
Something not covered here. Ask it, and you will get an answer about your own situation rather than a general one. We do not give legal advice, and where a question needs it we will say so.
Not every valuation during a separation is a dissolution valuation. Where yours is simply a house that needs a number, our Whittier Residential Appraisal page is the better place to begin.
Only one of us contacted you. Does that put you on their side?
No, and the assignment is built so that it could not. We are instructed to produce an independent opinion of value for a stated assignment, not to support a position. The property, the effective date and the comparable evidence would be identical if the other of you had made the call, and every fact in the report is shown with the source it came from so either of you can check it.
Neither of us trusts the other’s numbers. Why would ours be different?
Because you can take it apart. The sales relied on appear with their dates and their adjustments, the assumptions are stated, and anything we could not verify is labelled as unverified. A figure you have to accept on trust is worth very little in a dissolution. A figure you can argue with, and then cannot fault, is worth a great deal.
Almost everything we own is this house. Does that change how you work?
It does not change the method and it does change the care. Whittier is a city of married-couple households who own their homes, so a great many dissolutions here turn on one property, and we treat the report as something that will be read line by line rather than filed.
We are trying to settle without a hearing. Is this the right report for that?
Usually yes, and it is worth telling us that at the start. The assignment is the same, but knowing that a mediation or settlement deadline is driving it lets us tell you honestly whether the timing works before you instruct us.
Can our attorneys put questions to you about the report?
Yes. Questions about how a conclusion was reached, what a comparable was adjusted for or why something was excluded are ordinary and welcome. What we will not do is revise an opinion because somebody would prefer a different one.
Can both of us be there when you inspect?
Yes, and it is often simplest. What we need is access to the dwelling, the garage, any detached structures and the relevant site improvements. If being in the property at the same time is difficult, tell us and we will arrange it another way.
What happens if one of us simply refuses to accept the figure?
The report does not become invalid because somebody disagrees with it. It states an opinion, shows the evidence and shows the reasoning, and what happens next is a matter for your advisers and the process you are in. We can explain how a conclusion was reached. We cannot tell you what a court will do with it.
Who Reads It
What Each of Them Needs the Figure to Do
WHOEVER INSTRUCTED IT
Needs a value they can put in front of the other side without having to defend the choice of appraiser first.
THE SPOUSE WHO DID NOT CALL
Reads it with suspicion, and should be able to put that suspicion down after a few pages. This is the reader the report is really built for.
THE LAWYER OR THE MEDIATOR
Wants the date, the use and the named users on the front of the report, in the words the process they are running actually uses.
A JUDGE, IF IT EVER REACHES ONE
Needs reasoning that stands on its own without the appraiser in the room to explain it.
Where We Work
The Whole City, Every Kind of Property
Dissolution work is taken right across Whittier, from the older streets to the postwar tracts and up into the hills.
No part of this page is about one neighbourhood rather than the whole city.
Worth Reading
Where to Start Reading
The WCE Resource Hub
A hub built for family law practitioners and the professionals around them.
The Whittier Divorce Success Kit
A checklist of the assignment details, the records that help and the four questions worth answering first.
Elsewhere
Dissolutions We Take Elsewhere
Cities
Send Us Three Things
The property, the effective date the value has to speak to, and who will rely on the report. With those three we can tell you whether we are the right people for the assignment before either of you commits to anything.
Or call and ask. If the answer is that you do not need us, that is the answer you will get.
