Determining and Performing the Scope of Work (AO-28)

USPAP recognizes that the appropriate scope of work may differ significantly for different assignments; the SCOPE OF WORK RULE provides flexibility in determining the scope of work.  The competency necessary to determine an appropriate scope of work within the allowed flexibility resides with the appraiser.  Therefore, while it is common and reasonable for the client to provide input to the appraiser regarding a desired scope of work, the responsibility for determining the appropriate scope of work resides with the appraiser.  

The flexibility and responsibility are linked in the SCOPE OF WORK RULE when it states:

Appraisers have broad flexibility and significant responsibility in determining the appropriate scope of work for an appraisal, appraisal review, and appraisal consulting assignment.

This responsibility is described when the SCOPE OF WORK RULE states:

The appraiser must be prepared to demonstrate that the scope of work is sufficient to produce credible assignment results.

The client, for example, might request that the appraiser include, or exclude, specific inspections, data collection, or analysis in the scope of work. The appraiser may accept an assignment with these types of assignment conditions provided that the assignment results are credible in the context of the intended use. The SCOPE OF WORK RULE addresses this issue in the Scope of Work Acceptability section:

An appraiser must not allow assignment conditions to limit the scope of work to such a degree that the assignment results are not credible in the context of the intended use.

An appraiser must not allow the intended use of an assignment or a client’s objectives to cause the assignment results to be biased.

Determining the appropriate scope of work requires judgment. This judgment rests on the appraiser’s identification of the assignment elements and understanding of what is required to solve the identified problem. In many assignments, experienced appraisers are able to make this judgment about the appropriate scope of work quickly because they have performed many assignments addressing a similar problem to be solved (assignment with similar assignment elements). In other assignments, the determination of the appropriate scope of work may require more analysis by the appraiser because the problem to be solved has certain unusual characteristics. In yet other assignments, the appraiser may begin with a planned scope of work but in the course of the assignment find that the planned scope of work must be modified in order to produce credible assignment results.

The SCOPE OF WORK RULE recognizes that the scope of work actually performed may differ from the scope of work initially planned, when it states:

Determining the scope of work is an ongoing process in an assignment. Information or conditions discovered during the course of an assignment might cause the appraiser to reconsider the scope of work.

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