Establishing Market Value of Inherited Property

[akck]

As some of you may have gathered, my FIL just passed away. He has his house and other property which will be sold after a few months. What is an acceptable MV for his property at death? If it sells in 3 months, is the sales price acceptable? What if it takes 6 months or a year? If they talk to realtors now who provide a value, would that do? I don't want to get in a situation where they wait too long to sell and are possibly forced to use property tax assessed value. Thanks.


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[pb4uski]

IMO if there is a bona fide sale within a few moths after his death then the sale value is indicative of the fair value at the date of death unless there is some reason to expect that the value of the property has change significantly since the date of death. YMMV.

[Bamaman]

I would want a real estate appraiser to do an appraisal on the property--to come up with a "basis" for tax purposes.

If you're going to sell the property, it should be "fairly" priced--and you'll sell it faster. Sometimes I feel as if real estate agents are not working for me, the seller. Their goal is often to turn the property fast, and that's not always at triple top dollar.

We sold our last house for the list price to the third person that looked at it. Our real estate agent was trying to get us to price it $5K less than we got for it. That's an example of pricing a house properly--even if the agent's not looking out for the owner..

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by akck As some of you may have gathered, my FIL just passed away. He has his house and other property which will be sold after a few months. What is an acceptable MV for his property at death? If it sells in 3 months, is the sales price acceptable? What if it takes 6 months or a year? If they talk to realtors now who provide a value, would that do? I don't want to get in a situation where they wait too long to sell and are possibly forced to use property tax assessed value. Thanks. Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

Actually you might well consider hiring an appraiser to value the house. (Within a couple of months). They appear to cost between 200 and 400 dollars for a house. You could also get other real property appraised as well.

[audreyh1]

My SIL had to provide an itemized statement to the court declaring the value of all the assets in the estate. I assume this was for later use in establishing basis.

[meierlde]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 My SIL had to provide an itemized statement to the court declaring the value of all the assets in the estate. I assume this was for later use in establishing basis.

If probate is involved the state wants to know the value of the estate and an inventory must be filed (of items passing under the will not by beneficiary designation). Incidentally it does provide the basis. Some states at least still have inheritance taxes that start at $1millon or less so the inventory is needed to see if taxes are due. Today with a 5.3 million federal estate tax exemption, you less likley to need it to fill out the form 706.

[akck]

Thanks everyone for your quick replies. We'll likely establish market valve as the sales price when the property is put up for sale in the next couple of months. If it appears it will take longer than that, we'll get the property appraised. Fortunately, the estate is less than the estate tax exemption limit so we won't have to deal with taxes.


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[eytonxav]

An appraisal is the way to go as has already been mentioned.