Establishing Stepped Up Basis on Inherited Home

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I doubt it. Rather, you need an appraisal *as of the date of death*. Getting one shortly thereafter is best, but an appraiser ought to be able to do a retrospective "as of" appraisal.

Seth

Will wrote: ...

I think in any case where there was an estate return required, the value therein controls. If no return filed, one still would presume there would have had to been an evaluation made to ensure the total value of the estate was below that limit.

It seems to me that it mostly falls on the other side of the transaction to establish a value at TOD of the previous owner for estate purposes; which value would carry over.

No, I'm not saying that at all. First of all, the IRS does not establish the basis of your home. YOU determine the basis, but you have to be able to convince the IRS, if they ask, that the basis you report when you sell the home is correct, and was determined in keeping with the applicable laws and regulations. If you inherited the home, an appraisal as of the date of death would be very convincing evidence.

Your basis isn't changed by the passage of time. When you sell the home, it doesn't matter whether you inherited it 10 years ago, 15 years ago, or 30 years ago. Your basis is whatever the fair market value was on the date of death of the person you inherited it from. It's not the "last appraised value." It's the appraised value on the date of death, no matter how long ago that was, and no matter how many other appraisals might be done before or after that date.

Bob Sandler