Form 8283 real estate appraisals — what Utah donors actually need

A donor in Heber gifts a vacant building lot to the LDS Foundation. A widow in Sugar House deeds her late husband's investment condo to the University of Utah's planned-giving office. A retiring physician in Ogden funds an Intermountain Healthcare scholarship with a rental house. Three Utah charitable gifts in three weeks. All three need a qualified appraisal — and all three got tripped up by some piece of Form 8283 the donor didn't know about.

Form 8283 is the IRS's paperwork for noncash charitable contributions. For real estate, the threshold work happens above $5,000 — and almost every gift of an actual property crosses it. Section B of the form, the qualified-appraisal rules under IRC § 170(f)(11), the 60-day signature window, the donee's Form 8282 recapture obligation if they sell inside three years — these are the moving parts. None of them are exotic. All of them get missed.

Below is what the appraiser actually has to deliver, when it has to be signed, who has to sign what, and the calendar to back into a year-end donation. Nothing here is legal or tax advice — the gift structure belongs to your CPA and counsel. This is the appraisal piece.

The $500 / $5,000 / $500,000 thresholds — what each triggers

Three dollar lines, three different paperwork regimes. Memorize them in this order, because the IRS audit risk climbs at each one.

Under $500 — no Form 8283 at all. A book donation, a bag of clothes, a small household item. Real estate never lives here.

$500 to $5,000 — Section A of Form 8283. The donor describes the property, the donee, and the basis of value. No appraisal required. A small fractional interest in a rural lot might land in this band; an actual residence essentially never does.

Over $5,000 — Section B of Form 8283, and a qualified appraisal is required under IRC § 170(f)(11)(C). The appraisal stays in the donor's file; the Form 8283 summary goes with the return. The donor, the donee, and the appraiser all sign the form. This is the band almost every Utah residential-real-estate gift lands in.

Over $500,000 — same Section B paperwork, plus the full signed appraisal report attached to the return. Not just the summary. The IRS wants the comparable sales, the adjustment grid, the certifications, the photographs, the whole package physically in the file. For a high-end Park City cabin gifted to a university foundation, this is the operative threshold.

The number that actually matters to a residential appraiser is $5,000 — once that line is crossed, the work is qualified-appraisal work, period. The number that changes the assembly job at the CPA's office is $500,000. Below either, you are in a different paperwork lane entirely.

One important sub-rule: the $5,000 test is per item — but for real estate, the IRS treats a single property contributed in a single tax year as one item. Multiple properties to the same donee in the same year don't get to net against the threshold individually; each one is assessed on its own. Two adjacent rural lots gifted together are likely one contribution; a Salt Lake City condo and a Heber cabin gifted to the same charity are two.

The 60-day signature window under IRC § 170(f)(11)

This is the rule that catches more donors than any other, and it lives at the intersection of the appraiser's calendar and the donor's gift date.

Under IRC § 170(f)(11)(E)(i)(I), a qualified appraisal must be signed and dated by the appraiser no earlier than 60 days before the date of the contribution. Under sub-clause (II), the appraisal must also be received by the donor on or before the due date (including extensions) of the return on which the deduction is first claimed. Two ends of the window, both binding.

The practical effect: the appraiser's signature has to land inside a tight pre-donation period — or in the period between donation and return due date. The inspection can happen earlier. The research can happen earlier. The first draft can be sitting in the appraiser's draft folder for weeks. But the certification signature is calendared to the gift, not to the engagement.

For a December 15 donation, the appraisal can be signed any time from October 16 through April 15 of the following year (with the extension, October 15 of the following year). For a year-end gift on December 31, the early-side bound is November 1.

What goes wrong: an appraiser signs the report at engagement time — say September — then the donor delays the gift to year-end. The signature is now 90+ days old at the gift date. The IRS, if it audits, treats the appraisal as not qualified. The deduction can be disallowed entirely. Fix: re-sign the report inside the window before the gift, with a fresh certification page that re-anchors the effective date.

The honest workflow for year-end giving: inspect in October or November, draft through November, schedule the signature for the week before the planned gift date. Build the appraiser's signature into the gift calendar, not the engagement calendar.

Section B mechanics — three signatures, three roles

Section B of Form 8283 isn't one signature. It's three, and each signer is attesting to a different fact.

Part III — Donor (or Taxpayer) Statement. The donor signs that the information in Section B (1) about the property is true and correct, and acknowledges the appraisal is being relied on for the deduction. Standard taxpayer signature, dated.

Part IV — Declaration of Appraiser. The appraiser signs that they are not the donor, the donee, a related party, or an excluded party; that they perform appraisals regularly for compensation; that they are qualified to value the type of property at issue (state-certified at the required level, with experience in the property class); and that they understand the IRS penalty exposure for an aiding-and-abetting valuation. The appraiser also gives a taxpayer ID and address. This is the certification — without it, the appraisal is not "qualified" and the donor's deduction is at risk.

Part V — Donee Acknowledgment. The charitable organization signs that they received the property on the date noted, that they are a qualifying organization under IRC § 170(c), and that they understand the Form 8282 recapture rule if they sell or otherwise dispose of the property within three years. The donee signature is what makes the form complete.

If any of the three signatures is missing or late, the form is defective. Donors who handle Section B themselves often miss Part V — they assume the donee will sign on a copy at some later date, then can't get it back in time. The fix is procedural: deliver Section B to the donee at the same time as the deed, get all three signatures completed inside the same week, file the form with the return.

One Utah-specific note: large charitable organizations here (the LDS Foundation, the University of Utah's Office of Planned Giving, BYU's Office of Planned Giving, Intermountain Healthcare's Foundation) have dedicated planned-giving staff who handle Section B routinely and will sign quickly. Smaller local nonprofits sometimes don't have a designated signer, and the request lands on a board member's desk in December when nobody is around. Ask the donee up front who signs and how fast.

Form 8282 recapture if the charity sells within 3 years

The recapture rule is the sleeper. A donee that disposes of donated real estate within three years of receipt must file Form 8282 with the IRS reporting the sale price, within 125 days of the disposition. A copy goes to the donor. The form is short. The implications aren't.

The IRS uses Form 8282 to compare the appraised value the donor deducted against the price the charity actually realized. A donor who deducted $750,000 on the strength of a qualified appraisal, where the charity then sold the property for $510,000 four months later, is going to get attention. Sometimes the explanation is innocent — the charity took the property to sell, and a soft market gave them less than the appraisal predicted. Sometimes the explanation isn't innocent, and the IRS uses 8282 as a starting point for an examination of the original appraisal.

The defensive posture for donors: hire an appraiser whose value will hold up against a near-term sale, and document the basis of value so the contemporary sale and the appraised value are reconcilable. The defensive posture for the charity: know whether they intend to sell, tell the donor up front, and file 8282 on time. Late-filing penalties on 8282 increased in recent years, and the IRS has been more active enforcing them on smaller organizations.

Three years is also why some charities won't accept a real-estate gift they intend to sell quickly — the paperwork burden outweighs the contribution. If the donee says "we'll need to sell within 12 months," structure the gift accordingly with counsel, and expect the 8282.

The year-end timeline — working back from December 31

Year-end charitable real-estate donations have the same calendar pressure as year-end gift-tax appraisals, with the added wrinkle that the donee charity has to sign before the form is complete. Counting back from December 31:

• Mid-October — commission the appraisal. Send property address, intended donation date, donee organization, and the form being filed (Form 8283 Section B for a contribution over $5,000). Confirm the donee has been notified and has someone assigned to sign Part V.
• Late October to early November — inspection. One to two hours on site. Pictures and measurements to support the effective-date condition.
• November — report drafted but not yet signed. The appraiser holds the certification page back from signing until the 60-day window opens. Draft is in your CPA's hands for review.
• First week of December — appraiser signs. Certification page dated inside the 60-day window. Signed report delivered to donor and CPA.
• Mid-December — deed and Section B prepared by counsel. Donor signs Part III, attorney prepares deed for recording.
• Week of December 22 — donee signs Part V. Section B is now complete and in the donor's file with the deed. Recording at the county recorder before holiday closures.
• By December 31 — gift is complete. Property delivered and accepted, deed recorded, Form 8283 fully signed, qualified appraisal in the file. The return filing in April attaches Section B; over $500,000, the full report goes too.

Start later than mid-October and any one of these dependencies — counsel availability, donee responsiveness, recorder office hours, the appraiser's own December queue — becomes a single point of failure. Most December gifts that miss the year do not miss because the appraiser was slow. They miss because the donee charity took two weeks to sign Part V.

What the Utah landscape looks like for this work

The Utah charitable-receiving landscape is concentrated. Most residential-real-estate gifts route through a handful of well-staffed planned-giving offices: the LDS Foundation, the University of Utah, Brigham Young University, Utah State University, Intermountain Healthcare Foundation, Primary Children's Hospital Foundation, and a small number of community foundations and Catholic Diocese giving offices. These organizations process Section B routinely, have appraiser referral lists, and sign quickly.

Outside that group, things slow down. A small church, a local arts organization, or a community-based nonprofit may have never received a real-estate gift before. The donor often ends up educating the donee on the 8283 paperwork — which means more lead time, and sometimes the donee declining the gift entirely.

The appraisal piece of the work is the same either way: a qualified appraisal under IRC § 170(f)(11), an effective date matching the gift date, and a certification signed inside the 60-day window. What changes is the paperwork pace on the donee side. For the broader service detail — Form 706 estate work, Form 709 gift work, and the qualified-appraisal standard across all of them — see the gift tax & charitable‑gift appraisals service page.

Pick the donee early. Pick the gift date early. Sign the appraisal inside the window. The form takes care of itself.

Frequently asked

Related reading

The service home for Form 8283 work is the gift tax & charitable-gift appraisals service page, which covers Form 709 lifetime gifts and Form 8283 charitable donations together. For the year-end calendar that drives both gift-tax and charitable donations, see when to commission a year-end estate appraisal in Utah. For estate transfers post-death — when the property moves by inheritance rather than gift — the estate, probate & date-of-death appraisals service page is the right read. Most planned-giving offices in Utah are concentrated along the Salt Lake County and Utah County corridors, with cabin-and-resort gifts originating in Summit and Wasatch.

The appraisal is qualified or it isn't. The deduction is preserved or it isn't. The line is the signature inside the window.