Residential appraisal for family law, probate, and tax matters.

One-to-four unit residential and residential land valuations for Tarrant County attorneys and CPAs whose reports get read by an opposing expert, a judge, or an examiner.

What I do for your practice

• Marital property division and buyouts. Values supporting a just and right division under Tex. Fam. Code § 7.001, including date-of-marriage and date-of-filing values for characterization and reimbursement.
• Retrospective date-of-death valuation. Probate inventory, basis under IRC § 1014, and the § 2032 alternate valuation date if elected. Texas community property can take a basis adjustment on both halves under § 1014(b)(6); the appraisal supports it.
• Gift and charitable contribution reporting. Form 709 (including the appraisal route to adequate disclosure under Treas. Reg. § 301.6501(c)-1(f)(3)), Form 706, Form 8283 Section B, and Schedule A of Form 8971.
• Partition suits. Value of the whole and of undivided interests.
• Appraisal review of the other side's report under the USPAP review standards — methodology and support, not a competing number.
• Deposition and trial testimony in the Tarrant County family district courts (231st, 233rd, 322nd, 324th, 325th, 360th) and Probate Courts 1 and 2.

Why the report holds up

• Adjustments are supported, not asserted. Paired sales, market-derived rates, documented sources — the report answers "where did that come from?" before anyone asks.
• Developed and reported under the current edition of USPAP, including the effective-date requirements governing retrospective assignments.
• Charitable work is built to the regulation. Treas. Reg. § 1.170A-17 requires verifiable education and experience in the property type, preparation under generally accepted appraisal standards, and timely signature.
• Impartial by rule. The USPAP Ethics Rule requires impartiality, objectivity, and independence and forbids advocating any party's cause — including the party paying. The constraint is the point: under Tex. R. Evid. 702 and the Robinson factors, an advocate's opinion is the first thing a challenge attacks.

Joint and stipulated engagements

I serve as the single agreed or court-appointed appraiser. One appraisal instead of two, one fee, no battle of experts for the court to referee. My obligations do not change based on who pays, which is what makes it work. Either side may still depose me.

Working with your deadlines

• Standard turnaround: five to seven business days from inspection. Rush: two business days when the calendar allows, at an additional $200.
• To start: address, effective date(s), intended use and users, access contact, and any deed, survey, or prior report to consider.
• Retrospective work takes longer. Reconstructing a past market means verifying sales near that date and establishing the property's condition then. Give me the date early and budget accordingly.

What you receive

A complete written appraisal report, delivered as a PDF, typically 25 to 30 pages and longer on properties that need more photographs. Private assignments are written on a General Purpose Appraisal Report form rather than a lender form, so the report is built around your intended use instead of a lender’s underwriting checklist. Lender work is written on the current agency form.

• The value conclusion and the effective date it applies to, with the intended use and intended users stated on the face of the report.
• A sales comparison grid showing each closed comparable sale against your property line by line, with every adjustment shown.
• The support behind the adjustments — where each figure came from, whether paired sales, market-derived rates or measured data, rather than a number asserted without a source.
• Charts and graphs where an adjustment is hard to follow in words — a paired-sales comparison, a trend line, a plot of the relationship being measured. On an unusual property, or a feature with thin comparable evidence, showing the derivation is the difference between a figure a reader accepts and one they argue with. It is the same method behind the published research on this site.
• A market conditions analysis — measured, not a checkbox. When a property is unusual enough that the only genuinely competing sales are older ones, what the market did between those sales and the effective date has to be answered with evidence. The time adjustment is derived from the competing sales themselves rather than assumed, and stated so a reader can follow it.
• A measurement sketch with exterior dimensions and gross living area calculated to ANSI Z765-2021, with garage and outbuildings reported separately.
• Photographs of the subject — exterior, interior, and anything that bears on value — and of each comparable sale.
• A location map showing the subject against the comparables.
• A FEMA flood map with the zone, map panel number and effective date, showing whether the property sits in a Special Flood Hazard Area.
• Scope of work, signed certification and limiting conditions, with my Texas certification number, so anyone relying on the report can see what was and was not done.

Depending on the assignment, the report also carries a neighbourhood and site analysis, a highest and best use conclusion, a cost approach where the property calls for one, and any extraordinary assumptions or hypothetical conditions the work requires — each stated plainly rather than buried, because they change what the value conclusion actually means.

How to engage

• Email the request; I confirm scope, fee, and delivery date in writing before starting.
• The client is the firm unless you name the individual. Under the Ethics Rule's confidentiality provisions I discuss the assignment only with the client and those it authorizes.
• Scope, fee and delivery date confirmed in writing before I start — by signed engagement letter where the matter calls for one.
• Fee quoted in writing before I start on scope and complexity — never contingent on value, on the outcome, or on any later event.
• Testimony, deposition, and preparation time bill hourly at $350 an hour, separately from the appraisal fee, on a $2,500 retainer.

Credentials

Terrence Bilodeau, Texas Certified Residential Appraiser #1360232-CR — 15 years in Tarrant County and adjacent markets. Testimony: Tarrant, Parker, and Johnson County courts — family law, probate, and civil matters. Practice is limited to one-to-four unit residential and residential land; commercial and multifamily over four units go to a Certified General appraiser.

Terrence Bilodeau · Clearfork Appraisals · (817) 903-4509 · terrence@clearforkappraisals.com · Fort Worth, TX · Fee schedule and engagement letter on request.