Which definition of value the statute, the cause of action or the agreement imposes, the date the proceeding fixes, whether an adjustment is permitted or barred, a buy-out or appraisal already under way, a transfer tax valuation under examination, or what expertise a matter needs. Describe what you are dealing with and we will tell you plainly what it would take.
Every inquiry is read by a person. If something is time-sensitive — an election to purchase running from the date a petition was filed, an appraisal demand or petition window after a merger, an estate or gift tax return coming due, a hearing at which the valuation date will be set, or an expert disclosure date — say so and it moves to the front of the queue.
Four fields are required: your name, an address we can reply to, and a description of the matter. The rest helps us respond usefully the first time rather than with a round of questions.
Thank you, your message is with the team and someone will respond, usually within one business day. If a statutory window is already running — an election to purchase, an appraisal demand, a petition deadline, a return due date — please check it against the governing statute alongside. Those clocks run from the filing or the closing, not from the day we reply.
Which definition of value governs, and the date it is measured at, are usually settled before anyone retains an appraiser — and in several of these proceedings the act of filing settles them. New York’s oppression buy-out is the locked end of the range: fair value is determined “as of the day prior to the date on which such petition was filed, exclusive of any element of value arising from such filing,” and the corporation or another shareholder may elect to purchase “at any time within ninety days after the filing of such petition or at such later time as the court in its discretion may allow” (N.Y. BCL §1118). The Model Act looks identical and is not — its election-to-purchase provision defaults to the day before the petition was filed but adds “or as of such other date as the court deems appropriate under the circumstances” (verbatim at Iowa Code §490.1434(4) and Va. Code §13.1-749.1(D)). In Delaware appraisal the unforgiving part is perfection rather than the date: where the merger goes to a stockholder vote the written demand must reach the corporation before the vote is taken, and a proxy or a vote against the deal is not a demand (8 Del. C. §262(d)(1)); where the deal is approved by written consent, by short-form merger or under §251(h) there is no vote, and the demand instead follows the company’s notice, within 20 days of it, or for a §251(h) merger the later of that and consummation of the offer (§262(d)(2)). A petition must then be filed in the Court of Chancery within 120 days of the effective date, or “the right to appraisal with respect to all shares shall cease” (§262(e)). A missed step ends the claim before fair value is ever litigated. Transfer tax runs the other way: estate value is fixed at death and gift value “at the date of the gift” (IRC §2512(a)), while the one date a taxpayer chooses, §2032’s alternate valuation, is elected by the executor on the return, only where it decreases both the gross estate and the sum of the estate and generation-skipping tax net of credits (§2032(c)), and once made it “shall be irrevocable” (§2032(d)). Nor is it simply six months out — property disposed of within six months is valued as of that disposition (§2032(a)(1)). Matrimonial is looser still, which makes the date something to argue rather than something to receive: New York directs the court to set it as soon as practicable after commencement, anywhere “from the date of commencement of the action to the date of trial,” asset by asset (N.Y. Dom. Rel. Law §236(B)(4)(b)), while California values “as near as practicable to the time of trial,” with a date after separation and before trial available only on 30 days’ notice by the moving party and good cause shown (Cal. Fam. Code §2552). Three things follow, and none of them requires retaining anybody. Read the date and election provisions of the governing statute in the forum where the matter will be heard, and read them before the petition goes in rather than after. Diary those windows from the filing or the effective date rather than from the day an appraiser is engaged, because that is what the statute counts from. And where the date is discretionary rather than fixed, treat it as the first thing to brief: what the standard and the date mean is argued as law, and an appraisal prepared to the wrong one is not rescued by better modeling.