Structure of Property Valuation firms and Property Valuation Reporting Quality in Nigeria

Purpose: Transparency through high-quality property valuation reporting in compliance with international standards is central to the attainment of maturity in an opaque property market in this era of globalized real estate investment. This study examined the extent to which Nigerian valuation reports have complied with International standards. It also examined the extent to which compliance with these standards are affected by the structure of property valuation firms in the country.Design/Methods followed/Approach: This study examined reports prepared for lending purposes in Nigeria most especially those that have been submitted to banks. The qualities of these reports are assessed by examining the extent to which they satisfy the “minimum content of valuation report” as prescribed by RICS and IVSC. Compliance with these standards are related to the structure of the valuation firms that prepared them in terms of size, structure of ownership and affiliation with international professional bodies like RICS, FIABCI and CASLE through Logistic regression analysis.Findings: The findings will be communicated as the study is about to be completed.Originality/value of work: No known study (to the best of our knowledge) had examined the effect of the structure of property valuation firms on the quality of reports. While the collapse of multinationals like Enron and WorldCom with the indictment of Arthur Andersen further triggered the scrutiny of Audit firms in terms of structures and size through researches (such as Simunic, 2003; Foroghi and Shahshahani, 2012; Adeyemi and Fagbemi, 2010; Sawan and Alsaqqa, 2013), there has not been any recorded attention on the investigation of the structure of property valuation firms in the wake of property valuation induced crisis like the Schneider Affair of Germany and the Asian Financial crisis.