Land Valuation for Taxation and Compensation Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Government Valuers, Property Tax Officials and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-GPS-082

Before you join: Participants should have practical familiarity with land, property records, real estate transactions, taxation, infrastructure acquisition, resettlement, or public administration.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Land valuation for taxation and compensation sits at the centre of public revenue, land acquisition, infrastructure delivery, resettlement, and dispute resolution. Valuers and public officials must reach defensible conclusions where property records may be incomplete, markets thin, rights layered, and statutory requirements exacting. Weak valuation work can produce inequitable tax assessments, delayed projects, avoidable appeals, payment disputes, and loss of public confidence.

This course develops the methods used to value land for property taxation, compulsory acquisition, easements, temporary occupation, and related public purposes. Participants examine highest and best use, sales comparison, income, cost, residual valuation, mass appraisal, assessment ratio studies, and compensation principles. They learn to distinguish market value, assessed value, existing use value, replacement cost, disturbance losses, severance damages, and injurious affection. The course also addresses customary tenure, informal occupancy, valuation dates, statutory assumptions, evidence verification, reporting, objections, and expert evidence.

Teaching combines focused technical briefings with guided case analysis drawn from municipal rating, road corridors, utility wayleaves, urban redevelopment, and resettlement programmes. Participants work with sale evidence, parcel information, assessment records, compensation claims, and valuation scenarios to make and explain reasoned decisions. They leave with a reusable land valuation workpaper pack, including evidence logs, sales grids, compensation schedules, report structures, and quality review checklists.

The course is suited to professionals who already work with land, property, taxation, infrastructure, compensation, or public administration and need a disciplined valuation process that can withstand scrutiny from taxpayers, claimants, auditors, tribunals, and courts.

What you will be able to do

  • Interpret statutory valuation mandates, property rights, valuation dates, and basis-of-value requirements
  • Select and verify comparable land transactions using structured market evidence procedures
  • Apply highest and best use analysis to land valuation assignments
  • Construct land value conclusions using sales comparison, income, cost, and residual methods
  • Design mass appraisal inputs and assess assessment equity using ratio studies
  • Calculate compensation for acquisition, partial takings, easements, disturbance, and severance
  • Prepare valuation reports with documented assumptions, evidence, reconciliation, and uncertainty
  • Defend valuation conclusions through objection files, negotiation preparation, and audit trails

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Produce clearer land value opinions for taxation and compulsory acquisition assignments
  • Assess comparable sales and adjustment evidence with greater professional discipline
  • Calculate compensation heads for partial acquisition, easements, and disturbance claims
  • Prepare valuation files that support objections, negotiations, and tribunal review
  • Contribute credibly to tax roll, resettlement, and infrastructure acquisition decisions

For your organisation

  • Improve consistency and equity across property tax assessments
  • Reduce valuation-related objections, payment disputes, and project delays
  • Strengthen acquisition budgets through documented compensation assumptions
  • Create clearer audit trails from parcel evidence to final value conclusions
  • Support defensible public decisions on taxation, land acquisition, and resettlement

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can define the legal interest, valuation purpose, basis of value, and governing assumptions for an assignment.

  • Public-purpose valuation mandates, property rights, and administrative decision authorities
  • Distinguishing market value, assessed value, compensation value, and taxable value
  • Statutory date, valuation date, and effective date reconciliation
  • Tenure systems: freehold, leasehold, customary rights, easements, and informal occupancy
  • Legal interest identification before selecting evidence, assumptions, and valuation methods
  • Jurisdictional research log documenting legislation, regulations, case law, and guidance
  • Independence, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, and public-record disclosure duties

Participants can reach and document a highest and best use conclusion for land valuation.

  • Highest and best use tests: legal permissibility, physical possibility, feasibility, maximum profitability
  • Market demand analysis using absorption, vacancy, supply pipeline, and price trends
  • Parcel constraints mapped from access, shape, topography, services, and contamination
  • Feasibility screening through residual land value and developer profit assumptions
  • Existing use value distinguished from highest and best use
  • Special assumptions tested against planning approvals and development timing
  • Documenting use conclusions with evidence, sensitivity ranges, and limiting conditions

Participants can collect, verify, analyse, and reconcile land sales evidence for valuation purposes.

  • Comparable-sale selection using property rights, transaction motivation, and verification
  • Verification calls separating arm's-length sales from related-party or distressed transactions
  • Time adjustment derived from paired sales, indices, or repeat-sales evidence
  • Location, size, zoning, access, and service adjustments supported by evidence
  • Unit-rate analysis using price per square metre, hectare, frontage, and plot
  • Sales grid reconciliation identifying central tendency, outliers, and adjustment reliability
  • Data provenance records for cadastral, registry, planning, and market sources

Participants can apply and reconcile the principal valuation methods for land and development sites.

  • Sales comparison approach reconciled through adjusted comparable transaction evidence
  • Income approach using direct capitalisation, discounted cash flow, and yield selection
  • Cost approach applying replacement cost new, depreciation, and land value
  • Residual method for development land with explicit costs, timing, and profit
  • Capitalisation rate extraction from sales, rents, expenses, and risk factors
  • Cross-checking approaches through reconciliation rather than simple averaging
  • Sensitivity analysis for rents, yields, costs, absorption, and discount rates

Participants can explain mass appraisal design, valuation model inputs, and assessment equity testing.

  • CAMA model structure: property characteristics, neighbourhood codes, and valuation tables
  • Stratified market areas defined from land use, accessibility, and price behaviour
  • Hedonic regression concepts for attribute pricing and model specification
  • Ratio studies using assessment-sales ratios, median, COD, and PRD
  • IAAO standards for assessment uniformity, equity testing, and performance reporting
  • Calibration cycles, revaluation schedules, and treatment of omitted property
  • Appeal data analysed to identify systematic model or data errors

Participants can connect land value conclusions to assessment rolls, tax liabilities, and taxpayer communications.

  • Tax base design: land-only, site value, capital value, and rental value
  • Assessment roll fields linking parcels, ownership, exemptions, values, and liabilities
  • Tax liability calculation using assessed value, mill rate, and reliefs
  • Exemptions, abatements, deferrals, and relief eligibility documented consistently
  • Land value capture mechanisms: betterment levies, development charges, and betterment tax
  • Valuation date cycles and indexation policies managing market change
  • Notice of assessment content, taxpayer communication, and objection deadlines

Participants can identify and calculate the principal heads of compensation for compulsory acquisition.

  • Compensation principles: equivalence, indemnity, reinstatement, and no betterment
  • Before-and-after valuation for partial acquisition and injurious affection
  • Market value of land taken supported by highest and best use
  • Disturbance losses evidenced through relocation costs, business interruption, and fees
  • Severance damages assessed from reduced utility, access, shape, and amenity
  • Special value, marriage value, and hope value distinguished carefully
  • Resettlement planning interfaces with valuation, eligibility, and replacement-cost policy

Participants can value compensation claims involving limited rights, temporary impacts, and non-formal tenure.

  • Temporary occupation valued through rental evidence, duration, restoration, and risk
  • Wayleave and easement compensation using diminution, rental, and reinstatement methods
  • Crop, tree, and fixture valuation separated from underlying land interests
  • Customary and informal rights documented through stakeholder evidence and tenure mapping
  • Replacement cost versus market value in involuntary resettlement settings
  • Compensation matrices linking entitlement categories, valuation basis, and payment evidence
  • Inflation, payment delay, and interest calculations documented transparently

Participants can prepare a clear valuation report supported by evidence, controls, and uncertainty disclosure.

  • IVS-compliant scope of work defining client, purpose, basis, and assumptions
  • Valuation report structure presenting evidence, methods, reconciliation, and conclusion
  • Assumption and special-assumption registers with materiality and disclosure controls
  • GIS parcel maps, photographs, sale grids, and calculation schedules
  • Quality assurance review tracing source evidence through final valuation conclusion
  • Uncertainty communication using ranges, sensitivity analysis, and evidence limitations
  • Record retention protocols supporting audit, appeal, and judicial review

Participants can prepare defensible valuation files for objections, negotiations, audits, and formal disputes.

  • Objection files assembled from notices, evidence requests, and valuation records
  • Negotiation preparation using BATNA, concession limits, and evidence hierarchy
  • Expert witness duties: independence, written opinions, and cross-examination preparation
  • Administrative appeal pathways, deadlines, burden of proof, and remedy options
  • Audit trails linking field inspection, data changes, approvals, and decisions
  • Anti-corruption controls for inspections, exemptions, settlements, and payment authorisation
  • Individual application plan specifying priority cases, stakeholders, and review dates

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Land valuation assignment scope template
  2. Comparable-sales verification and adjustment grid
  3. Highest and best use assessment worksheet
  4. Property tax assessment ratio study model
  5. Land acquisition compensation calculation schedule
  6. Valuation report and quality assurance checklist

Who should attend

  • Government Valuers — need defensible values for taxation, acquisition, and public asset decisions
  • Property Tax Officials — need consistent assessment methods and evidence for taxpayer objections
  • Land Administration Officers — need to connect tenure records, parcel data, and valuation decisions
  • Infrastructure Project Managers — need reliable acquisition and compensation budgets before construction
  • Resettlement and Social Safeguards Specialists — need valuation inputs for entitlement and payment planning
  • Surveyors and Real Estate Professionals — need public-purpose valuation methods beyond ordinary transactions

Skills and tools covered

Land market analysisHighest and best useMass appraisalCompensation valuationValuation reportingAppeal case preparation

Tools and standards

International Valuation Standards, RICS Valuation - Global Standards, International Association of Assessing Officers standards, Computer-Assisted Mass Appraisal

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short technical briefings followed by structured case work based on tax assessment rolls, land sales, road acquisitions, utility corridors, and resettlement claims. Participants analyse evidence, select valuation methods, test assumptions, prepare calculations, and compare alternative conclusions in small groups. Simulated objection and negotiation discussions build confidence in explaining value opinions under challenge. Each participant develops an application plan for improving valuation files, assessment processes, or compensation decisions in their own role.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical familiarity with land, property records, real estate transactions, taxation, infrastructure acquisition, resettlement, or public administration. They should be comfortable reading valuation tables, basic financial calculations, maps, and legal or policy documents. Prior exposure to local land tenure and registration systems is useful. The course assumes no advanced mathematics, econometrics, GIS programming, or prior expert-witness experience. It does not require a professional valuation designation, although participants should expect to work with numerical evidence and reasoned written conclusions.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants should have some exposure to land, property, taxation, infrastructure, compensation, surveying, or public administration. No professional valuation designation is required, but participants should be comfortable working with numerical evidence and property records.

Bring a calculator and, where permitted, examples of non-confidential valuation forms, tax notices, parcel records, or compensation issues from your work. A laptop is useful for reviewing case materials, although it is not mandatory.

The course is designed for government valuers, tax officials, land administration staff, infrastructure teams, resettlement specialists, surveyors, and property professionals. It is especially relevant for staff whose work is reviewed by taxpayers, claimants, auditors, or tribunals.

General valuation courses often focus on investment, lending, or private transactions. This course focuses on statutory purposes: tax assessment, compulsory acquisition, public compensation, administrative appeals, customary rights, and defensible public records.

Participants can use the templates and methods to structure valuation assignments, verify sales, assess tax roll evidence, calculate compensation heads, and improve report quality. The application plan helps them identify immediate changes to their own files or procedures.

Each day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. Time is divided between technical instruction, worked valuation cases, group analysis, calculation activities, reporting discussions, and application planning.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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