Here’s a useful post about appraisals and divorce. It’s short. Read the whole thing.
“In some situations there may only be one value needed, which is as of the current date or date of the filing of the divorce, and in other instances two values may be needed. Two values may be needed if the home was owned by one of the parties before the marriage occurred, and if there has been a significant change in the value of the property since the marriage.”
You also sometimes see that when you’ve inherited an income property in the past and now need to determine the basis for taxes.
In both cases you hire an appraiser to determine the value of the property at some point in the past.