A question I get often: “How do I protect myself when a valuation gets challenged?”

This recent article in Working RE Magazine, “When Appraisers Take the Stand“, is worth 20 minutes of your time, even though it’s written for real estate appraisers. Here’s why: when your business valuation becomes litigation evidence, courts apply the same scrutiny. They will test your methodology, question your comparables, and probe for inconsistencies.

The authors walk through the checklist courts are actually using now—and it’s tighter than it used to be. More demands on documentation. More pressure on your reasoning. The difference between a valuation that holds up and one that crumbles often comes down to how disciplined your workfile is before the dispute even starts.

As business appraisers, we follow USPAP. We practice “best practices.” But reading what real estate colleagues are experiencing helps us stay sharp about what “best practices” actually means when someone is questioning our judgment in a courtroom.