When you are buying or selling real estate, whether for a home, an investment, or a business property such as an event garden or a gas station, a licensed real-estate appraiser can help you through the whole process, from the initial valuation to the real-estate tax the deal generates.
Real-estate appraiser: certification
Getting a license to work as a real-estate appraiser requires an academic degree, real-estate appraisal studies, passing every exam set by the Appraisers Council at the Ministry of Justice under the Real Estate Appraisers Law, and completing a one-year internship.
Meeting these requirements lets you register in the Ministry of Justice's register of appraisers, which is what grants the license to practice.
It is worth using an appraiser who is both licensed and experienced, and ideally one whose opinions are admissible as testimony in court.
Real-estate appraiser: regulations and institutions
Several organizations and laws govern the profession. The main ones are:
The Chamber of Real-Estate Appraisers: a registered nonprofit that sets the rules of conduct and ethics for appraisers in Israel and represents them before other bodies.
The Real-Estate Appraisers Council: manages the register of appraisers, oversees the profession and handles complaints against them, runs the certification exams, and supervises interns in the field.
The rules of ethics and code of conduct: set out general rules of conduct and spell out what counts as unbefitting the profession.
Real-estate appraiser: areas of responsibility
An appraiser's work spans several areas. Here are the main ones:
Valuation
The core of the job: valuing a property by gathering comprehensive information about it and its surroundings, and examining its characteristics. A licensed appraiser can give an expert opinion on any type of property, from apartments, buildings, plots, farms and agricultural land to public institutions and stores, and writes the valuation up as an appraisal report.
Expert opinions
An appraiser can also give an expert opinion on estimating a property's value, dividing rights in real estate, loss of value, future investments, sales, leasing and renting, market value, dissolving a partnership, receivership, inheritances, eviction compensation, fair-use fees, key money, and more.
Real-estate taxation
Taxation is central to the field. An appraiser typically handles land appreciation tax, purchase tax, municipal tax (arnona), consent fees, betterment levies, key money, expropriations, building fees, development levies, tax planning, and more.
Compensation claims for loss of value
A licensed appraiser supports compensation claims under Section 197 of the Planning and Building Law against the authorities, for loss of property value following the approval of a town-planning scheme.
That includes supporting affected owners' claims, estimating the expected loss of value, giving expert opinions, and representing owners before the authorities.
At the end of the job, the appraiser submits an appraisal report: an objective picture of the property that weighs its current condition against expected changes in the market.
It pays to use a licensed real-estate appraiser in any real-estate deal you make. The appraiser brings a wide range of services to bear, examining both the property and the transaction on your behalf.
The engineers of Arad Bedek Bayit, led by building engineer Ron Arad, whom courts appoint as their own expert on construction defects. The company has been inspecting apartments and buildings since 2001. Engineer Ron Arad · More about the company