June 11, 2025 • 12 mins
On this episode, Kirk Stange discusses how county assessor valuations are often inaccurate for divorce cases because they don’t involve thorough home inspections. Instead, a professional appraisal is typically more reliable and legally accepted when determining a home’s value in court.
This episode is based on an article on Family Law Headquarters: Is the real estate assessor’s value accurate?
To learn more or to schedule an initial consultation with our Austin, Texas divorce lawyers, please call 855-805-0595 or contact our firm online.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-law-talk--6410781/support.
This episode is based on an article on Family Law Headquarters: Is the real estate assessor’s value accurate?
To learn more or to schedule an initial consultation with our Austin, Texas divorce lawyers, please call 855-805-0595 or contact our firm online.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/family-law-talk--6410781/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Family Law Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Family Law Talk.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Presented by Kirk Stangy of Stangy Law Firm PC. Stangy
Law Firm is a multi state family law firm. Now
here's your host, Kirk Stangy.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to Family Law Talk. We have an interesting topic today.
The topic is the real estate assessors valuation and this
episode today is based on an article on our blog
Familylawheadquarters dot com day to June eighth, twenty twenty five
and the title of the article is is the real
estate assessor's value accurate? So it as a follow up
(00:38):
to the episode today, going over to Familawheadquarters dot com
and read this article on this topic from more information,
but let's go ahead and jump on in. And a
lot of dissolutions of marriage, the value of the marital
home is often a significant issue for some individuals who
are going through a divorce. The marital home may be
the most valuable asset out there, and so to resolve
(01:02):
a divorce, the parties are going to have to either
agree on a value of the marital home or the
court's going to have to decide what the marital home
is worth. And that's really the only way marital property
and debt can be divided, which is dividing marital property
and debt in a just manner. But to do that,
you've got to know the value of all the assets,
(01:23):
and that includes the marital home. Obviously, in some cases,
it can be more complicated when parties own more real
property than just the marital home, like maybe they have
a vacation home, or maybe they have rental property or
commercial property, and certainly in those circumstances, all of those
properties would need to be evaluated as well. Okay, but
one of the big questions lots of individuals have when
(01:47):
going through divorce and trying to figure out how to
divide property and debt is whether or not the real
estate assessor's valuation is acurate or not. In other words,
will the court rely on that valuation or can we
rely on that valuation for settlement purposes? Can we introduce
that valuation into court? And sometimes parties look at the
real estate assessor's valuation and all candor and they think
(02:10):
it's way off base. A lot of cases, parties might
think the real estate assessors valuation is way high, so
they're making the property worth way more than it ought
to be worth. In some circumstances, one or both parties
could think the opposite. They might think the assessor's valuation
is really low. So maybe the assessor thinks the value
(02:33):
of the property is a certain amount, but the party
disputes it. They don't think it's accurate or not okay,
And so this is very common in divorce cases. Parties
looking at the assessor's value and neither thinking it's way
too high or it's way too low, and they want
to know what to do, and they want to know
whether the assessor's valuation is accurate or is it no accurate,
(02:55):
And so that's the topic here today. Obviously, every case
is different. The circumstances regarding the real estate assessor valuating
certain property is going to be a little bit different.
But candidly, there are some things, at least I've seen
through the years in representing clients and lots of cases
and certainly in dealing with assessors valuations. And one of
(03:18):
the big issues is that a lot of assessors do
what's called a drive by assessment. Okay, so they might
drive by the property, they might observe it from the outside,
but oftentimes they don't even go inside the marital home.
If the homeowner's not home, they might not even speak
to the homeowner, right, so the assessor might not know
all kinds of things like what upgrades have been made
(03:41):
to this house? What improvements have been made to it?
And then on the flip end, if there's repairs that
are needed, if there's things in the house that's outdated
and maybe need to be updated, like new carpets, new flooring,
maybe new AC units, right, maybe new air handlers or
new water heaters, of these kinds of things. A lot
of parties would be upset and say, look, the real
(04:03):
estate assessor didn't even take this stuff into account, and
so their valuation doesn't make a whole lot of sense
and it ought to not be relied upon. Okay, on
the flip end, if one party thinks the assessor's valuation
is off base and that it's too low, their argument
might be, look, they didn't go inside the house. They
(04:24):
didn't see all the improvements that were made inside of it.
Maybe there's new water heaters, maybe there's new AC units.
You know, maybe new flooring or carpeting was put in,
and all these things increased the value, But the assessor
didn't even know this stuff as well, so look, adherent
in real estate assessors valuations in terms of the critique
(04:45):
is the fact that oftentimes they're not even going inside
the home and so they don't even know for sure
what's been done, what hasn't been done, you know, the
areas of the home that need to be improved upon,
you know, maybe or even out of code. You know,
maybe the homeless bill long ago, and certain setups within
the home might be outside of best practices in this
(05:08):
day and age, and maybe wouldn't even clear code if
somebody went in and expected it, and maybe that could
impact the value. Okay, So this is one of the
biggest critiques when you get into real estate assessors evaluations.
So in a lot of cases, what parties want to
do instead of using the real estate assessors valuation is
hire a real estate appraiser. Okay, so there's lots of
(05:31):
outside real estate appraisers. They can come, they can see
the marital home. Typically they're going to come and sign,
They're going to walk around the outside of the property
inspect that too. Typically, they can ask the homeowner about
right the pros and the cons of the property. They
can ask about the upgrades that have been made and
maybe ask about the items where upgrades haven't been made
(05:54):
but they need to be made, and they can then
take a better you know, take better data in information
order to have a more accurate valuation of the property itself. Okay.
Another advantage of having a real estate appraiser come in
is that they can actually come into court and they
can testify in court. And so in a divorced manner,
(06:18):
it's important to not only hire a real estate appraiser
if this is an issue in the case, but to
hire a real estate appraiser who has experienced testifying in court,
because frankly, a lot of real estate appraisers have never
done this before, so that would be difficult for them,
and maybe some would not even be willing to do
that in terms of coming into court. So finding a
(06:38):
qualified real estate appraiser who's properly licensed, who's willing to
come into court and testify, that's typically the best path.
Where parties disagree on the value of the marital home
or other property, just hire a real estate appraiser. Candidly,
in some cases both parties will have separate appraisals done right.
(06:59):
Husband might have one done, wife might have one done.
Those appraisals could turn out to be pretty similar or
they could turn out to be pretty different, in which case,
you know, parties have to decide whether to meet in
the middle or to present the case to the court,
and then the court has to decide what appraisal they
think is more credible or not. Okay, one of the
other questions is this, which is sort of interesting, and
(07:20):
this is a little bit in the weeds, I should say,
out of the gates, but it's this which is will
a real estate assessor's valuation? Can it even come into court?
So could a lawyer even admit it and present it
to the judge? And this is really kind of an
interesting question. And again this is in the weeds. But arguably,
if the real estate assessor isn't in court, an attorney
(07:43):
could argue that it's hearsay, so it's an on a
court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted.
They could argue lack of foundation in that nobody came
in and testified in terms of the foundation for the valuation,
in other words, what facts and data will relied upon.
So you know, a savvy lawyer who doesn't want the
assessor's valuation coming in for one reason or the other.
(08:05):
They think it's too high, or they think it's too low.
If they don't want it in, they're going to object
and say that it shouldn't come in, and from my
experience in a lot of instances, it's not going to
come in. And then again not to get too too
much into the weeds. An attorney if they want to
admit it and the other side's objecting for here's say,
lack of foundation, maybe some other reasons than an attorney
(08:26):
who once to admit it might argue, wait a minute,
there's an exception for printouts from government web pages. This
is a printout from a government web page. I think
I can admit it on those grounds. Maybe that works.
Maybe that doesn't work because it has opinion based testimony
contained within it. It's not just data, and so this
is real murky too. So the reality is, unless the
(08:47):
other sign's going to consent to the admission of the
real estate assessor's valuation, I don't think a party or
an attorney can necessarily rely on the fact that this
is going to be admissible in court of the other
signs likely to object. Okay, another interesting situation that I've
seen a lot of cases is people looking at online
web page valuations. So I know one of the big
(09:09):
web pages is Zillo. You know, most parties can go
to Zilo, type in their address. It'll have an approximate
value for property, and it'll have some property history in
terms of what it's sold for and when it lasts
sold to these kinds of things. And again the question
here is is that accurate or not? Again, the problem
is Zilo didn't go on the homes. Zillo didn't inspect
(09:32):
the homes. Zillo's doing approximations based on sales that have
been made in the area, presumably the size of the home,
the features of these kinds of things. But again, Zillo,
whether it's accurate or not, I think a lot of
people would say not so accurate. And then you get
into an issue of can you admit a Zillo valuation
in court or some similar web page And the answer
(09:54):
is probably not unless the other side is going to consent. Again,
you're going to get hear Saale Foundation objections and this
is not a government web page, so you can't argue
that exception to get it admitted. So you know, if
a party is saying I don't want to do a
real estate appraisal. I just want to get Zillo admitted
to court. That might be easier said than done because
(10:16):
of these evidentiary hurdles I've already mentioned. So listen, for
most cases, okay, where parties disagree on the value of
the marital home and this is a big, big issue
in the case, okay, and it's not going to be reconcilable.
Parties aren't going to be able to meet in the
middle or something like this, And most instances, what's advisable
(10:37):
is to get a real estate appraiser who's license and
who has experienced testifying in court to come and valuate
the home. That's almost always the best practice, that's the
best path. Some parties might be resistant because I don't
want to pay for real estate appraisal, but if this
is a big issue of the case, this is almost
always the path that a party has to undertake. Real
(10:59):
estate is users in zill valuations maybe not that reliable
and hard to get admitted into court. Okay. So that's
the episode today. Definitely an interesting topic and one I
wanted to cover. Is a follow up to the episode today,
going over to our blog Famielawheadquarters dot com read the
article day to June twenty twenty five titled is the
(11:20):
real estate Assessor's value Accurate? This will give you more
information on this topic. But thanks for tuning in today.
Stay tuned our next episode of Family Law Talk coming up.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Thank you for listening to Family Law Talk with Kirk Stangy.
Visit Stangy Lawfirm dot com for more about today's topic
or to put Stangy Lawfirm to work for your family today.
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision. It
should not be based solely on advertisements. Neither the Supreme
Court of Missouri or Illinois reviews or approved certifying organizations
(11:52):
or specialist designations. The information you obtained in this podcast
is not, nor is it intended to be legal advice.
You should consult an attorney advice regarding your individual situation.
We invite you to contact us and welcome your calls, letters,
and electronic mail. Contacting us does not create an attorney
client relationship. Please do not send any confidential information to
us until such time as an attorney client relationship has
(12:15):
been established, as the results afford no guarantee of future results.
In every case is different and must be judged on
its own merits. Kirk Stangy is responsible for the content
Headquarters Office one twenty South Central Avenue, Sweet four fifty, Clayton, Missouri,
six thirty one oh five. Kirk Stangy is licensed in Missouri, Illinois,
and Kansas
Welcome to Family Law Talk.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Family Law Talk.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Presented by Kirk Stangy of Stangy Law Firm PC. Stangy
Law Firm is a multi state family law firm. Now
here's your host, Kirk Stangy.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to Family Law Talk. We have an interesting topic today.
The topic is the real estate assessors valuation and this
episode today is based on an article on our blog
Familylawheadquarters dot com day to June eighth, twenty twenty five
and the title of the article is is the real
estate assessor's value accurate? So it as a follow up
(00:38):
to the episode today, going over to Familawheadquarters dot com
and read this article on this topic from more information,
but let's go ahead and jump on in. And a
lot of dissolutions of marriage, the value of the marital
home is often a significant issue for some individuals who
are going through a divorce. The marital home may be
the most valuable asset out there, and so to resolve
(01:02):
a divorce, the parties are going to have to either
agree on a value of the marital home or the
court's going to have to decide what the marital home
is worth. And that's really the only way marital property
and debt can be divided, which is dividing marital property
and debt in a just manner. But to do that,
you've got to know the value of all the assets,
(01:23):
and that includes the marital home. Obviously, in some cases,
it can be more complicated when parties own more real
property than just the marital home, like maybe they have
a vacation home, or maybe they have rental property or
commercial property, and certainly in those circumstances, all of those
properties would need to be evaluated as well. Okay, but
one of the big questions lots of individuals have when
(01:47):
going through divorce and trying to figure out how to
divide property and debt is whether or not the real
estate assessor's valuation is acurate or not. In other words,
will the court rely on that valuation or can we
rely on that valuation for settlement purposes? Can we introduce
that valuation into court? And sometimes parties look at the
real estate assessor's valuation and all candor and they think
(02:10):
it's way off base. A lot of cases, parties might
think the real estate assessors valuation is way high, so
they're making the property worth way more than it ought
to be worth. In some circumstances, one or both parties
could think the opposite. They might think the assessor's valuation
is really low. So maybe the assessor thinks the value
(02:33):
of the property is a certain amount, but the party
disputes it. They don't think it's accurate or not okay,
And so this is very common in divorce cases. Parties
looking at the assessor's value and neither thinking it's way
too high or it's way too low, and they want
to know what to do, and they want to know
whether the assessor's valuation is accurate or is it no accurate,
(02:55):
And so that's the topic here today. Obviously, every case
is different. The circumstances regarding the real estate assessor valuating
certain property is going to be a little bit different.
But candidly, there are some things, at least I've seen
through the years in representing clients and lots of cases
and certainly in dealing with assessors valuations. And one of
(03:18):
the big issues is that a lot of assessors do
what's called a drive by assessment. Okay, so they might
drive by the property, they might observe it from the outside,
but oftentimes they don't even go inside the marital home.
If the homeowner's not home, they might not even speak
to the homeowner, right, so the assessor might not know
all kinds of things like what upgrades have been made
(03:41):
to this house? What improvements have been made to it?
And then on the flip end, if there's repairs that
are needed, if there's things in the house that's outdated
and maybe need to be updated, like new carpets, new flooring,
maybe new AC units, right, maybe new air handlers or
new water heaters, of these kinds of things. A lot
of parties would be upset and say, look, the real
(04:03):
estate assessor didn't even take this stuff into account, and
so their valuation doesn't make a whole lot of sense
and it ought to not be relied upon. Okay, on
the flip end, if one party thinks the assessor's valuation
is off base and that it's too low, their argument
might be, look, they didn't go inside the house. They
(04:24):
didn't see all the improvements that were made inside of it.
Maybe there's new water heaters, maybe there's new AC units.
You know, maybe new flooring or carpeting was put in,
and all these things increased the value, But the assessor
didn't even know this stuff as well, so look, adherent
in real estate assessors valuations in terms of the critique
(04:45):
is the fact that oftentimes they're not even going inside
the home and so they don't even know for sure
what's been done, what hasn't been done, you know, the
areas of the home that need to be improved upon,
you know, maybe or even out of code. You know,
maybe the homeless bill long ago, and certain setups within
the home might be outside of best practices in this
(05:08):
day and age, and maybe wouldn't even clear code if
somebody went in and expected it, and maybe that could
impact the value. Okay, So this is one of the
biggest critiques when you get into real estate assessors evaluations.
So in a lot of cases, what parties want to
do instead of using the real estate assessors valuation is
hire a real estate appraiser. Okay, so there's lots of
(05:31):
outside real estate appraisers. They can come, they can see
the marital home. Typically they're going to come and sign,
They're going to walk around the outside of the property
inspect that too. Typically, they can ask the homeowner about
right the pros and the cons of the property. They
can ask about the upgrades that have been made and
maybe ask about the items where upgrades haven't been made
(05:54):
but they need to be made, and they can then
take a better you know, take better data in information
order to have a more accurate valuation of the property itself. Okay.
Another advantage of having a real estate appraiser come in
is that they can actually come into court and they
can testify in court. And so in a divorced manner,
(06:18):
it's important to not only hire a real estate appraiser
if this is an issue in the case, but to
hire a real estate appraiser who has experienced testifying in court,
because frankly, a lot of real estate appraisers have never
done this before, so that would be difficult for them,
and maybe some would not even be willing to do
that in terms of coming into court. So finding a
(06:38):
qualified real estate appraiser who's properly licensed, who's willing to
come into court and testify, that's typically the best path.
Where parties disagree on the value of the marital home
or other property, just hire a real estate appraiser. Candidly,
in some cases both parties will have separate appraisals done right.
(06:59):
Husband might have one done, wife might have one done.
Those appraisals could turn out to be pretty similar or
they could turn out to be pretty different, in which case,
you know, parties have to decide whether to meet in
the middle or to present the case to the court,
and then the court has to decide what appraisal they
think is more credible or not. Okay, one of the
other questions is this, which is sort of interesting, and
(07:20):
this is a little bit in the weeds, I should say,
out of the gates, but it's this which is will
a real estate assessor's valuation? Can it even come into court?
So could a lawyer even admit it and present it
to the judge? And this is really kind of an
interesting question. And again this is in the weeds. But arguably,
if the real estate assessor isn't in court, an attorney
(07:43):
could argue that it's hearsay, so it's an on a
court statement offered for the truth of the matter asserted.
They could argue lack of foundation in that nobody came
in and testified in terms of the foundation for the valuation,
in other words, what facts and data will relied upon.
So you know, a savvy lawyer who doesn't want the
assessor's valuation coming in for one reason or the other.
(08:05):
They think it's too high, or they think it's too low.
If they don't want it in, they're going to object
and say that it shouldn't come in, and from my
experience in a lot of instances, it's not going to
come in. And then again not to get too too
much into the weeds. An attorney if they want to
admit it and the other side's objecting for here's say,
lack of foundation, maybe some other reasons than an attorney
(08:26):
who once to admit it might argue, wait a minute,
there's an exception for printouts from government web pages. This
is a printout from a government web page. I think
I can admit it on those grounds. Maybe that works.
Maybe that doesn't work because it has opinion based testimony
contained within it. It's not just data, and so this
is real murky too. So the reality is, unless the
(08:47):
other sign's going to consent to the admission of the
real estate assessor's valuation, I don't think a party or
an attorney can necessarily rely on the fact that this
is going to be admissible in court of the other
signs likely to object. Okay, another interesting situation that I've
seen a lot of cases is people looking at online
web page valuations. So I know one of the big
(09:09):
web pages is Zillo. You know, most parties can go
to Zilo, type in their address. It'll have an approximate
value for property, and it'll have some property history in
terms of what it's sold for and when it lasts
sold to these kinds of things. And again the question
here is is that accurate or not? Again, the problem
is Zilo didn't go on the homes. Zillo didn't inspect
(09:32):
the homes. Zillo's doing approximations based on sales that have
been made in the area, presumably the size of the home,
the features of these kinds of things. But again, Zillo,
whether it's accurate or not, I think a lot of
people would say not so accurate. And then you get
into an issue of can you admit a Zillo valuation
in court or some similar web page And the answer
(09:54):
is probably not unless the other side is going to consent. Again,
you're going to get hear Saale Foundation objections and this
is not a government web page, so you can't argue
that exception to get it admitted. So you know, if
a party is saying I don't want to do a
real estate appraisal. I just want to get Zillo admitted
to court. That might be easier said than done because
(10:16):
of these evidentiary hurdles I've already mentioned. So listen, for
most cases, okay, where parties disagree on the value of
the marital home and this is a big, big issue
in the case, okay, and it's not going to be reconcilable.
Parties aren't going to be able to meet in the
middle or something like this, And most instances, what's advisable
(10:37):
is to get a real estate appraiser who's license and
who has experienced testifying in court to come and valuate
the home. That's almost always the best practice, that's the
best path. Some parties might be resistant because I don't
want to pay for real estate appraisal, but if this
is a big issue of the case, this is almost
always the path that a party has to undertake. Real
(10:59):
estate is users in zill valuations maybe not that reliable
and hard to get admitted into court. Okay. So that's
the episode today. Definitely an interesting topic and one I
wanted to cover. Is a follow up to the episode today,
going over to our blog Famielawheadquarters dot com read the
article day to June twenty twenty five titled is the
(11:20):
real estate Assessor's value Accurate? This will give you more
information on this topic. But thanks for tuning in today.
Stay tuned our next episode of Family Law Talk coming up.
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Thank you for listening to Family Law Talk with Kirk Stangy.
Visit Stangy Lawfirm dot com for more about today's topic
or to put Stangy Lawfirm to work for your family today.
The choice of a lawyer is an important decision. It
should not be based solely on advertisements. Neither the Supreme
Court of Missouri or Illinois reviews or approved certifying organizations
(11:52):
or specialist designations. The information you obtained in this podcast
is not, nor is it intended to be legal advice.
You should consult an attorney advice regarding your individual situation.
We invite you to contact us and welcome your calls, letters,
and electronic mail. Contacting us does not create an attorney
client relationship. Please do not send any confidential information to
us until such time as an attorney client relationship has
(12:15):
been established, as the results afford no guarantee of future results.
In every case is different and must be judged on
its own merits. Kirk Stangy is responsible for the content
Headquarters Office one twenty South Central Avenue, Sweet four fifty, Clayton, Missouri,
six thirty one oh five. Kirk Stangy is licensed in Missouri, Illinois,
and Kansas
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