Loan Collateral Appraisals
Equipment, vehicle and machinery valuations prepared for lenders taking the asset as security.
Loan Collateral work has its own rules
A lender is not asking what the asset is worth to its owner. They are asking what it would realise if they had to take it and sell it, on their timeline rather than the borrower's. That is orderly or forced liquidation value, not fair market value, and a report that quotes the wrong one gets sent back — usually after the closing date has moved.
Every report prepared for this purpose states its intended use and intended user explicitly, applies the value standard that purpose requires, and is signed by the appraiser who performed the work. That is not a courtesy — it is what makes the report usable by the party who has to accept it.
What needs to be valued?
Need a loan collateral appraisal?
Tell us the asset and the deadline. You get a fixed written quote, usually the same day.
What the work actually looks like
Real assignments, client details removed — what each engagement actually turned on, rather than how it felt.
A house, a workshop of machine tools, a forty-year firearms collection and a stake in the family company — four disciplines that three appraisers had only partly covered. One engagement, one effective date, one set of assumptions.
A donation the regulations would have aggregated past the appraisal threshold, which the donor had assessed item by item. One qualified appraisal covering the group, itemized, signed inside the window the regulations allow.
An opposing report whose number was not obviously wrong — which is what made it dangerous. It failed on its own certification, and was answered section by section with an independent valuation to the correct definition of value.