What are the differences between an informal appraisal and a formal one?
Those outside the appraisal profession have different interpretations of formal and informal reports. When a client simply wants “a number” and not a long document, he/she will often call it an informal appraisal. Those outside the appraisal field often refer to the old “letter of opinion” report as an informal report, although terms such as “update appraisal”, “recertification of value” and “evaluation of real property collateral” have also been used. When USPAP became effective in the late 1980’s, appraisers no longer used this terminology because a letter of opinion and the derivatives above became a violation of multiple USPAP regulations. Now known as the restricted report format, appraisers are required to do substantially more work to issue this type of report. For “formal” reports, USPAP dictates that appraisers can issue two types of appraisals and three types of reports for a total of six possible combinations. There are two types of appraisals: complete and limited. These te
Those outside the appraisal profession have different interpretations of formal and informal reports. When a client simply wants “a number” and not a long document, he/she will often call it an informal appraisal. Those outside the appraisal field often refer to the old “letter of opinion” report as an informal report, although terms such as “update appraisal”, “recertification of value” and “evaluation of real property collateral” have also been used. When USPAP became effective in the late 1980’s, appraisers no longer used this terminology because a letter of opinion and the derivatives above became a violation of multiple USPAP regulations. Now known as the restricted report format, appraisers are required to do substantially more work to issue this type of report. For “formal” reports, USPAP dictates that appraisers can issue three types of reports. Self-Contained: In this report option, the appraiser provides all of his/her data and rationale that was used in the development of th