Estate and Date-of-Death Appraisals
Estates in Essex County are probated through the Essex County Surrogate's Court, 495 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, 2nd Floor, Newark. Executors typically need a date-of-death value for three reasons: to report stepped-up basis to the IRS, to divide property fairly among heirs, and to support a sale or buyout.
Our estate and date-of-death appraisals are retrospective. We value the property as it stood on the date of death, using sales from that period rather than today's market. That matters in Essex County, where values have moved sharply in recent years and a current-market figure can overstate the basis by a wide margin.