Ethical Delimitation of Client Satisfaction, Client Sophistication and Client Influence in Property Valuation Practice in Nigeria

There are three major concepts that exist to determine and explain the decision-making behaviours of professionals while executing client assignments; viz: Client Satisfaction (CS), Client Sophistication (CSpth) and Client Influence (CI). There is paucity of articles that have attempted to examine the three concepts together; to give a clear distinction, and to report the critical implications on ethics of property valuation for financial reporting and other purposes. Hence, as a contribution to positioning property valuation as an anti-corruption tool, this study attempts to present the differential characteristics of the three concepts so as to further guide Estate Surveyors and Valuers in Nigeria on ethical standards in professional practice. Thirty (30) previous studies were systematically selected from database-search of best-ranked international journals found on the Real Estate Journal List that was recently determined and published by the American Real Estate Society. This was done to give credence to the conceptualisation and discussions in this paper. Moreover, this paper adopts the qualitative, analytical procedure of content analysis in the review of 30 extant studies based on the three concepts under study. Findings of this study show that issues of client satisfaction border around valuation accuracy, rationality, consistency, reliability as well as professional's unethical conducts. Client sophistication relates to their having some technical skills, expertise, as well as the influence of readily available knowledge through the internet and computational benefits of advanced valuation models. Client influence may also be reflected in valuation briefs; fee payment arrangements; valuation report/figures; valuation process; and the nature of valuation information made available to the valuer. The current study gives a clearer elucidation of the differences and implications of the concepts of CS, CSpth and CI on client-valuer engagements in property valuation practice. The study concludes that, while working to obtain ‘client satisfaction’ during valuations, it is crucial that valuers are intentional in being focused - by ensuring strict personal adherence to ethical standards in order to prevent undue client influence that may result from client sophistication.