AI-GRS common mistakes
AI-GRS · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Treating a review as a second appraisal and substituting the reviewer's own value conclusion for the appraiser's, rather than forming an opinion on the adequacy and appropriateness of the appraisal under review.
Candidates come from a fee-appraisal background where producing a value is the deliverable, and they carry that reflex into review assignments where the scope is different.
What to do instead
Before answering any review scenario, state the review question explicitly: is the appraisal's development and reporting adequate and appropriate, and is the value opinion credible? Keep the reviewer's own value, if any, clearly labeled and separate from the credibility judgment.
Failing to define the review's scope of work up front, then judging the appraisal against standards the reviewer never established (e.g., faulting an appraisal for omitting work the intended use did not require).
The scope-of-work decision is easy to skip because candidates assume there is one correct depth of review, when in fact the appropriate scope depends on the intended use, the client, and the property.
What to do instead
For every review question, first identify intended use, intended user, and the review's own scope of work; evaluate the appraisal only against what that scope and the applicable standards require.
Mixing up the roles and obligations of the three review levels (administrative/technical, and the reviewer's opinion of the appraisal's quality versus a value opinion), and answering as if all reviews carry the same obligations.
The distinctions are conceptual rather than memorizable lists, and candidates conflate 'checking the math' with 'reviewing the analysis.'
What to do instead
Build a one-page comparison of review types: what each examines, what each concludes, and what each requires in the report. Practice classifying short scenarios into the correct type before answering.
Citing a standard or ethical rule by number without stating what it actually requires, or attributing a requirement to the wrong standard.
Candidates memorize numbering schemes under time pressure and rely on recall of labels rather than the substance of the requirement.
What to do instead
For each major standard, write the operative requirement in your own words and one example of compliance and one of violation; answer exam questions from the substance, using the number only as a label.
Missing ethics issues embedded in otherwise routine scenarios, such as contingent fees, undisclosed prior involvement, accepting an assignment whose result is preordained, or a reviewer's conflict of interest.
Candidates read the scenario as a valuation-methodology problem and stop analyzing once they find the technical issue, overlooking the conduct issue sitting alongside it.
What to do instead
After analyzing any scenario, run a fixed ethics checklist: compensation arrangement, independence/conflict, competence, confidentiality, disclosure, and whether the assignment's conditions compromise objectivity.
Failing to recognize when an assignment must be declined or when a requested condition (a predetermined value, a contingent fee, an unlicensed practice) cannot be accepted, instead proposing a workaround.
Candidates want to be helpful and solve the client's problem, so they engineer a compromise rather than identifying the disqualifying condition.
What to do instead
Memorize the short list of non-negotiable prohibitions and practice stating, in one sentence, why the assignment cannot be accepted as proposed and what lawful alternative exists.
Accepting a report's conclusions without testing the highest-and-best-use analysis, the sales-comparison adjustments, or the reconciliation, and instead critiquing superficial items like grammar or formatting.
Surface errors are easy to spot and give a false sense of having completed the review, while analytical testing requires reconstructing the appraiser's reasoning.
What to do instead
For each approach in a report, identify the key judgment (e.g., adjustment support, HABU conclusion, cap rate derivation) and ask what evidence in the report supports it; make that the core of the critique.
Confusing the reviewer's obligation to verify data with an obligation to independently redevelop the entire appraisal, and faulting an appraiser for relying on sources the scope of work permitted.
Candidates overcorrect toward 'verify everything' without tying verification depth to the review's scope and the significance of the data to the conclusion.
What to do instead
Tie verification effort to materiality: identify which data points drive the value conclusion and confirm those; state explicitly that lesser data was accepted as presented, consistent with the defined scope.
Writing review conclusions that are vague or non-committal ('the appraisal appears generally reasonable') without identifying which specific items are adequate, inadequate, or unsupported and why.
Candidates fear being wrong and hedge, or they list observations without converting them into a judgment on credibility.
What to do instead
Use a structured format: for each major element, state the finding, the evidence, and the effect on credibility; end with an explicit statement of whether the value opinion is or is not credible and under what conditions.
Producing a review report that does not meet reporting requirements for the review itself - omitting the review's scope of work, the reviewer's certification, assumptions and limiting conditions, or the identity of the reviewer's own value opinion if one is given.
Candidates focus on the subject appraisal's deficiencies and forget that their own report is a work product subject to its own reporting obligations.
What to do instead
Draft a reusable review-report checklist (scope, sources, findings, reviewer certification, limiting conditions, signature, and clear separation of credibility opinion from any reviewer value) and apply it to every practice report.