When someone passes away, the property they owned must be valued as of the date of their death. This means establishing what the property was worth on that specific date, rather than its current market value or the price it may eventually sell for.
That specific date is what makes this different from any other appraisal, and it is where most of the difficulty sits. We prepare date of death valuations for executors, estate trustees, lawyers and accountants.
Not always, and you should know that before you order an appraisal.
For the probate application itself, most provinces will accept a reasonable estimate of what the property is worth. You do not necessarily need a formal appraisal to file.
An appraisal is worth it when the property is a large part of the estate, when the beneficiaries may not agree, when the estate will take time to settle, or when the property is anything other than an ordinary house.
You are most likely to need a proper appraisal when the property is a significant part of the estate, when beneficiaries may not all agree, when the estate will not be settled quickly, or when the property is anything other than an ordinary house.
If none of those apply, tell us when you call. We will say plainly whether it is worth doing, even if the answer is no.
This is the part that catches executors out. People assume there is one number. There are usually three, they are asked by different bodies for different reasons, and they can legitimately differ.
| The probate application | The estate's tax or fee calculation | The deceased's final tax return | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who is asking | The court | The province | The Canada Revenue Agency |
| What they want | The estate's value, so the grant can be issued | The value the provincial estate fee or tax is calculated on | The value used to work out any gain on the property |
| Valued as of | The date of death | The date of death | The date of death |
| Will an estimate do | Often, for the application itself | No, the figure filed has to be the actual value | No |
| Who usually handles it | The estate lawyer | The estate lawyer | The accountant |
The appraisal is one piece of evidence that serves all three. That is why it is worth getting right once rather than three times.
Your accountant handles the tax calculation and your lawyer handles the filing. We provide the value they both work from.
A common misconception is that the property’s eventual sale price reflects its value at the time the owner passed away. While the sale price can provide useful market evidence, it does not necessarily represent the property’s market value as of the date of death.
Months usually pass between a death and a sale. The market moves in that time. More importantly, the property itself usually changes. It gets cleared out, repaired, painted, staged. The house that sells is not the house that existed on the date of death.
An appraisal values the property as it actually stood on that date, using market evidence from that period rather than from today. That is called a retrospective valuation, and it is a different piece of work from valuing a property as it sits now.
This is the single most useful thing on this page, so we have given it its own section.
Once a property is emptied, cleaned and repaired, the evidence of its condition at the date of death is gone. Rebuilding that picture afterwards is possible but harder, and a weaker file is easier for someone to argue with.
If you can, before anything is moved or changed:
If the house has already been cleared, this is still workable. It just means we rely more on records and less on what we can see.
Usually the executor or estate trustee instructs the appraiser, often on the advice of the estate lawyer. The report is addressed to the estate.
Two things worth knowing:
A probate appraisal is a written report, prepared to CUSPAP, the Canadian Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, by an appraiser holding an AACI or CRA designation from the Appraisal Institute of Canada. It sets out the effective date, the property as it stood on that date, the evidence relied on and the reasoning behind the value.
Fees depend on the property type, how far back the effective date is and where the property situated. A retrospective valuation on a rural acreage is not the same work as a current valuation of a suburban house, and it should not be priced as though it were.
Provide us with the property details, the date of death and the purpose of the valuation, and we will provide a no-obligation fee estimate the same day.
Tell us the property and the date.
The address, the date of death, and what the value is being used for. If a lawyer or accountant is involved, we can deal with them directly.
We confirm the fee and the timeline.
Same day, no obligation, before any work starts.
We inspect and research.
The property as it stands, plus the market evidence from the period around the effective date.
You get the report.
Delivered to you and to the lender or broker you name.
Often not for the application itself, where a reasonable estimate is usually accepted. Where it matters is in what gets filed afterwards and in the deceased’s final tax return, because those need actual values. Your estate lawyer will tell you which applies to your file.
The date of death, in almost every case, even though the inspection and the report happen later.
Yes. We value the property as it stood on the date of death, using evidence from that period. The sale price is one piece of evidence, not the answer.
No, but tell us what changed and when. We rely more on records, photographs and documentation and less on what is visible today.
It depends on the property, how far back the effective date is and how far away it is. Tell us your deadline when you call and we will tell you straight away whether we can meet it.
It is the same date and usually the same figure, but they are separate questions asked by different bodies. Tell us at the start if the report needs to serve both, so the scope covers it.
An assessment is a mass-appraisal figure produced for taxation, valued as of a date set in legislation rather than the date of death. It values thousands of properties at once rather than looking at yours.
For an informal estimate, sometimes. It is not an appraisal, it is not prepared to professional standards, and if a beneficiary or an authority questions the value it will not carry the same weight.
Almost always yes. A sale between family members is not at arm’s length, so the agreed price is not evidence of market value on its own, and the other beneficiaries are entitled to an independent figure.
Either. Most often the executor instructs us on the lawyer’s advice. Tell us who needs to receive the report and we will address it correctly.
The address, the date of death, the property type, and the contact details for the lawyer or accountant if they are involved.
Tell us the property, the date of death and what the value is for. We will come back the same day with a fee and a timeline.
