How to Find Valuation Report Contradictions

A report can contain the right opinion of Market Value and still create an avoidable problem. The executive summary may state £1,250,000, while the valuation rationale, sensitivity commentary or final certificate refers to £1,200,000. Neither figure may be a typo in isolation. Together, they are valuation report contradictions, and they give a reviewer a reasonable question: which figure reflects the valuer's concluded opinion?

These issues are rarely caused by a lack of technical knowledge. They arise in the normal course of a pressured instruction. A draft is updated after a comparable is added. A rent schedule is revised but the summary table is not. A template retains language from an earlier version. When a report runs to dozens of pages, manual checking can struggle to test every repeated fact against every other mention.

Why valuation report contradictions matter

A lender reads a report as a decision document, not as a record of the drafting process. If the capital value, assumed rent, floor area or unexpired term changes between sections without explanation, the report can appear less reliable than the underlying valuation work warrants.

The practical result may be a query, a request for clarification or a report returned for amendment. That interrupts the instruction, delays the lending decision and adds unplanned review time. For the valuer, the more significant point is defensibility. A clear audit trail should show how the evidence, assumptions and conclusion connect.

Not every apparent mismatch is an error. A lower figure in a sensitivity section may be entirely proper. A historic rent may be quoted alongside current passing rent, ERV and Market Rent. The issue is whether the distinction is labelled clearly and carried consistently through the report. A good review identifies the mismatch for the surveyor to assess. It does not decide the valuation judgement.

Where valuation report contradictions usually arise

The highest-risk contradictions are often small details repeated in several places. They are easy to miss precisely because each occurrence can look plausible when read on its own.

Capital values, rents and yields

The concluded Market Value may appear in the instruction summary, valuation section, executive summary, certificate and sometimes in a covering statement. A difference of £50,000 between two of those sections is unlikely to be ignored by a lender, even where it does not alter the lending decision.

The same applies to Market Rent, passing rent and yield. Consider a retail investment valued at £2,400,000 on a 6.50% net initial yield, with a passing rent of £165,000 per annum. If the report later refers to a 6.25% yield in its investment commentary, the figures need checking. It may reflect a valid secondary calculation, a gross-to-net distinction or an earlier draft assumption. But unless that is explained, the report invites a question.

A useful audit method is to identify every currency amount, percentage and yield in the draft, then compare repeated references by label and context. The purpose is not to force all numbers to match. It is to make sure that figures which should reconcile do so, and that figures which properly differ are identified as such.

Areas and valuation metrics

Area discrepancies can affect both the conclusion and the reader's confidence in the analysis. A report might state 1,020 sq m NIA in the property description but use 1,090 sq m in the comparable analysis. That may be a simple transcription issue. It may also mean that one figure includes ancillary accommodation or that the basis of measurement has changed.

The important question is whether the adopted area is consistent with the rate per sq m and the valuation calculation. If the market commentary says comparable evidence supports £2,000 per sq m, an adopted area of 1,020 sq m suggests £2,040,000 before adjustments. If the valuation table reaches £2,180,000, the report needs either a transparent adjustment or a recalculation.

Checking arithmetic alone is not enough. The reviewer should test the relationship between area, adopted rate and capital value across the report. A calculation can be mathematically correct while using an area that does not match the stated basis of valuation.

Lease terms and tenant statements

Lease data tends to travel through a report in several forms: property description, tenancy schedule, valuation rationale, risk commentary and comparable analysis. This creates scope for drift after a lease event or a change to the assumed terms.

For example, the tenancy schedule may show an unexpired term of 4.8 years, while the investment commentary refers to five years certain. Those phrases may be compatible, but only if the break position, expiry date and assumptions are clear. If the report discusses a tenant break in March 2030 but the schedule shows a lease expiry in September 2031, the distinction between break date and expiry should be explicit.

Tenant covenant wording deserves the same care. A statement that a tenant is a subsidiary, a guarantor, or a named trading entity can be material to the reader's understanding of risk. Contradictions here may arise from copied wording, outdated company information or a mismatch between the lease and the narrative. The solution is not generic language. It is a precise statement of the entity assessed and the basis on which the covenant has been considered.

Comparable evidence and dates

Comparable evidence is often the part of the report most closely tested by a lender-side reviewer. Dates, prices, areas, analysis rates and source descriptions need to work together. A sale described as occurring in June 2024 in the narrative should not appear as August 2024 in the comparable schedule unless one date is exchange and the other completion, with that distinction stated.

Equally, a comparable analysed at £1,850 per sq m should reconcile to the price and area used in the schedule. Rounding can create immaterial variance, particularly where areas are approximate, but a material difference should be explained rather than left for the reader to infer.

Comparable contradictions also arise when a report's market commentary describes evidence as recent, while the schedule shows a transaction outside the relevant market period. Again, that does not necessarily make the evidence unsuitable. In a thin market, older evidence may remain helpful. The report should simply say why it remains relevant and how it has been weighted.

Review the report as one document

A disciplined final review is more effective when it follows the way a lender will read the report. Start with the instruction and certificate. Confirm the client, purpose, valuation date, interest valued, basis of value and report date. Then follow the core figures through the executive summary, valuation rationale, calculations and appendices.

Next, test the assumptions which drive the conclusion. That includes tenure, accommodation, lease events, passing rent, Market Rent, yield and relevant disclosures. If an EWS1 form or building safety matter is relevant to the instruction, check that the disclosure is present where required and that the wording does not contradict the valuation assumptions.

Finally, compare the report against the stated lender and client requirements. A minimum number of comparable transactions, a marketing-period requirement or a particular commentary request can be missed when the report is otherwise technically sound. These are not marginal administrative points. They form part of whether the report answers the instruction given.

This review takes judgement. A senior surveyor may correctly decide that a flagged difference is intentional and sufficiently explained. The value of the process is that the decision is conscious, rather than an inconsistency passing unnoticed because the report was read section by section.

Use technology to handle repetitive comparison

Document review software can support this work by reading a draft report as a connected whole. Rather than searching manually for every mention of a value or date, it can flag where a Market Value differs between sections, where a yield does not reconcile with the adopted rent, or where lease terminology appears inconsistent.

WriteUp is designed for this specific task in RICS valuation reports. It reviews figures, calculations, comparable evidence, lease terms and report-wide wording against the draft, alongside relevant Red Book, lender and client criteria. Findings remain for the surveyor to review and either address or dismiss. The professional judgement stays exactly where it belongs: with the registered valuer.

For firms handling confidential reports, the method matters as much as the finding. Any system used for review should be clear about how documents are processed, whether data is retained, and whether it is used to train models. Private encrypted processing with no report storage or model training gives a firm a clearer basis for using a second pair of eyes without giving up control of its work.

A report does not need to be perfect in every respect to be defensible. It needs to state its evidence, assumptions and judgement clearly, with no unexplained conflict between the pages. Before issue, give the draft one final read as a single document. The contradiction that takes seconds to correct is often the one a reviewer would otherwise remember.