As most family lawyers know, when separating parties cannot agree on the value of an asset, which is often real estate, an expert valuation is required from an independent valuer. This is not the same as an appraisal from a real estate agent. A formal valuation is far more in depth and completed by a registered valuer with specific experience in giving evidence under the Family Law Rules 2021.
A huge pain point of the valuations process is finding a suitable valuer and obtaining a quote from them for the valuation; and then having to repeat this process for at least another two valuers. This involves a lot of back and forth for family lawyers and/or their legal assistants due to manual outreach to multiple valuation firms and then needing to manage multiple email or communication channels for the return of the quote.
Our new Valuation milestone, built into the InfoTrack platform, streamlines this entire process. Currently, the milestone allows lawyers to obtain an immediate desktop valuation for a real property. This is not, however, a formal valuation. The new version of the milestone will allow lawyers to seamlessly commence the formal valuation process for real estate.
Family lawyers will enter the address (or multiple addresses) of properties that require valuation and the details relevant to determining the quote for the valuation (noting this is separate to the letter of instruction), including:
The lawyer can then select from our panel of registered, family law-experienced, national valuation services to provide a quote/s. The quote will be provided by each valuation service to the lawyer directly, and the lawyer can then go on to provide all three quotes to the other party for consideration and selection of the appointed valuer for the matter.
Property valuations sit at the intersection of legal expertise, expert evidence, and practical coordination. By bringing coordination of this into a single platform, alongside the other milestones and workflows family lawyers already rely on, we are helping practitioners spend less time on logistics and more time on the work that actually matters for their clients.
The Valuation milestone is available now to all InfoTrack clients where they find their family law products and searches. If you’d like to see it in action, reach out to your InfoTrack account manager for a demonstration.
