Section 4: Reviewing for Completeness of Reports
Anchor: #i1001124Procedure
The initial review of the appraisal report and/or technical expert’s report should determine the report’s completeness, including documentation and the detection of any errors or omissions. Review appraisers should confirm that each appraisal or evaluation report prepared by a technical expert is sufficiently comprehensive to support the recommended values. Accordingly, the review appraiser must be thoroughly familiar with the appraised property, the surrounding neighborhood, and the comparable sales used by the appraiser, together with the comparable data that have previously been developed by ROW PD in its economic study for the project. The review appraiser should personally verify sale prices of as many of the comparable sales as possible.
If an appraisal report is incomplete due to overlooked improvements, or if additional information is needed to support its value conclusions, the appraiser is expected to revise and supplement the report as necessary without additional compensation. Any report that is not sufficiently complete and properly documented should be held, and the fee for the report should not be recommended for payment until information is received to properly explain and support the final estimate of value.
Should the appraisal report be deemed unacceptable by ROW PD, ROW PD will document the deficiencies and return the report and its accompanying invoice to the appraiser, requesting that the deficiencies be rectified. The appraiser shall make the appropriate corrections and resubmit the report with a new invoice.
Upon receipt of the corrected report, ROW PD shall date-stamp the report, restarting the 30-day prompt payment process.
ROW PD shall retain a record copy of all appraisal and technical expert reports. If a correction or revision is necessary, the appraiser shall furnish corrected, revised, or supplemental pages or portions of the report for attachment to the copy. All copies except the record copy of the report may be returned to the appraiser for necessary corrections or revisions. Any request for a substantive correction or revision of an appraisal or specialty report shall be documented in the ROW PD’s files.
If two appraisal reports are needed on a parcel, a coordinated review of the reports should be made to determine if there are omissions or overlooked improvements in either report. This initial review should determine if there are any major differences in the findings of values, either in total values or in major component parts (land improvements, damages, or enhancements). If so, an additional appraisal report may be recommended.
The review appraiser may have valuation information not included in the appraisal reports that will help to reach decisions regarding the recommended value. Such information should be included in the comments on form ROW-A-10 Tabulation of Values. However, if the review appraiser has reason to question the values estimated by the appraiser(s), and if the review appraiser cannot conscientiously recommend a value conclusion from the existing appraisal(s), an additional appraisal report should be ordered.
The review appraiser should analyze reports with particular attention to completeness and accuracy of research, full explanations of reasoning, substantiation of facts, and the appropriate application of appraisal methodology. The analysis may determine that an approved value should be based upon the existing appraisal report(s) if it is not practical to obtain an additional report. A value developed in this manner by the review appraiser will generally fall within the range of value indicated by the appraisal reports.