The values the estate needs, handled with care.
Settling an estate means producing defensible values for everything the collection holds, on a deadline, in the middle of grief. Cove prepares date-of-death Fair Market Value for the executor, the attorney, and the return, while the family attends to everything else.
A fixed date, a real deadline, and no room to guess.
Estate values are not estimates for planning. They are the numbers the return is filed on, the numbers heirs' cost basis rests on, and the numbers a challenge would be measured against.
Fair Market Value, as of one day.
The estate is valued at Fair Market Value as of the date of death, whatever the market has done since. Valuing a past date takes evidence from around that date, which is exactly what a documented record makes findable.
The clock is running.
Estate filings run on statutory deadlines measured in months, not years, and the appraisal has to be in the executor's hands well before them. Starting early is a kindness to everyone involved.
The basis heirs inherit.
Estate values generally set the heirs' cost basis in each work. A number that is casually low or casually high follows the family for decades. It is worth getting right once.
One report everyone works from.
A qualified appraisal prepared to USPAP standards, suitable for the executor, the estate attorney, the accountant, and the IRS, by an appraiser who meets the Internal Revenue Service definition of a qualified appraiser.
Filed-ready and signed.
Full cataloging, provenance as documented, condition, and date-of-death Fair Market Value for every work, signed and ready for counsel and the return.
Built to withstand review.
Comparable sales from around the valuation date, sourced and dated, attached to every number. If a value is ever questioned, the answer is already in the report.
A record the heirs keep.
The appraisal joins a complete record of the collection: what each piece is, where it came from, and what it is worth. Distribution, sale, or donation all start prepared.
Cove prepares the appraisal and the documentation. Cove does not provide tax or legal advice: the estate's attorney and accountant direct the filing, working from a report built to answer their questions.
The kinder version starts earlier.
Every estate appraisal is easier when the collection was documented in life. The executor inherits a record instead of a mystery: no drawers of unlabeled receipts, no works nobody can identify, no guessing what mattered.
If you are reading this ahead of the moment rather than inside it, that is what planning ahead is for.
Appraisals for what comes next.
Tell us where things stand.
Who is handling the estate, what the collection holds, and the dates that matter. We will confirm the timeline and quote the engagement. From $100 per piece, scaling with volume.
Thank you.
A member of the Cove team will be in touch shortly.