Tools that answer the question before you call
Four working tools built from primary sources, with the citation shown next to every rule. They are free, they require no account, and they will occasionally tell you that you do not need an appraiser at all — which is the point.
IRS donation requirements
What the IRS requires for your noncash gift
Acknowledgment, Form 8283 section, whether a qualified appraisal is required, and whether it must be attached — by property type and dollar amount.
FEMA 50% rule calculator
Are you about to cross the substantial improvement threshold?
The ratio, with the cost items FEMA requires you to count, the ones your community may let you exclude, and Arizona look-back periods.
Valuation date finder
What date should the appraisal be as of?
The governing date for eight matter types — including the alternate valuation date calculation, and the honest answer that Arizona divorce has no fixed date.
Document checklist generator
Everything we will need, before you send anything
A tailored list by asset type and intended use, marked for what is required versus merely helpful. Printable and copyable.
Why an appraiser publishes this
Most firms in this business treat the rules as the product: call us and we will tell you what you need. That is a poor trade for you and, honestly, a weak position for us. If the rules are published and cited, you arrive knowing what you need, we spend the first call on your actual problem, and nobody buys a report they did not require.
Everything here traces to a primary source, and in the two places where the sources genuinely conflict — the non-publicly-traded stock band between $5,000 and $10,000, and Maricopa County’s non-standard substantial improvement denominator — the tools say so on the page rather than quietly picking a side. An appraiser who papers over an ambiguity in public will paper over one in your report.
They are not tax, legal, or engineering advice, and none of them makes a determination. The IRS decides what satisfies the IRS. Your floodplain administrator decides whether a project is a substantial improvement. A court decides a contested valuation date.
What the tools do is get you to the right question, with the citation in hand, before you spend money.
Ready for a number you can defend?
Tell us what you have and what it's for. You get a fixed written quote — never an hourly meter, never a sales call.