3.5. Review Appraiser Expressing an Opinion of Value.If a review appraiser cannot accept or recommend approval of an appraisal report reviewed for Uniform Act purposes and it is determined that it is not practical to obtain an additional appraisal, the review appraiser may be authorized to develop an independent opinion of value.157 Various federal agencies have adopted policies, rules, and procedures that regulate the circumstances in which a reviewing appraiser may develop an independent opinion of value and become the agency’s appraiser of record.158 

The review appraiser may recommend, accept, or not accept an appraisal report based upon compliance with these Standards and the appropriateness of the methods and analyses employed in the appraisal report. Such actions do not constitute an opinion of value on the part of the review appraiser, nor do they infer that the reviewing appraiser has taken ownership of, or is responsible for, the value opinion expressed in the appraisal report under review. 

When it is appropriate for a review appraiser to develop an opinion of value and become the appraiser of record, that value opinion must be supported and documented in accordance with these Standards. This does not require the review appraiser to replicate the steps completed by the original appraiser. The data and analysis that the reviewer determined to be credible and in compliance with these Standards can be incorporated by reference into the review appraiser’s review report using an extraordinary assumption.159 Those portions of the appraiser’s report that the reviewer determined not credible or inconsistent with these Standards must be replaced in the review report with additional data and analysis by the review appraiser.160 The reviewer may use additional information that was not available to the original appraiser, but under such circumstances the effective date of the reviewer’s opinion of value will generally be later in time than the effective date of the original appraiser’s opinion of value. Therefore, in most cases, the original appraiser’s opinion of value generally cannot be compared directly to the reviewer’s later opinion of value for any legitimate purpose.