PS 2: ethics, competence and disclosure for property valuers in Morocco

A valuation is only as good as the conditions under which it was produced. Everything else in the report presupposes that those conditions were sound — which is why they are declared, not assumed.

1. Where PS 2 sits in the Red Book

The Red Book (RICS Valuation — Global Standards) is the international reference framework for property valuation. Within it, the VPS standards govern the technical conduct of the exercise — the terms of engagement, the bases of value, the investigations, the content of the report. PS 2 governs something logically prior: the professional and ethical conditions under which any of that may be undertaken at all.

It rests on the RICS Rules of Conduct: act with integrity; always provide a high standard of service; act in a way that promotes trust in the profession; treat others with respect; and take responsibility. These are not aspirational statements. Breach exposes the member to disciplinary proceedings that can go as far as removal from the register — and it is the individual who is exposed, which is the whole point of a standard aimed at conduct rather than at output.

One structural point should be stated plainly, because it is routinely misdescribed in marketing material across the market. RICS certifies individual professionals, not firms. There is no such thing as a RICS-certified company. What exists is a named person holding a grade, bound by the Rules of Conduct, who signs a report and answers for it — and a firm whose reports comply with Red Book standards because the people producing them do. A reader who wants to know what a valuation is worth should therefore ask who signed it, not which letterhead it arrived on.

In Morocco this framework supplements the local regulatory picture rather than duplicating it. There is no national professional body for property valuers of the kind found in several European jurisdictions. RICS status therefore does work here that it does not have to do elsewhere: it supplies a verifiable standard of competence and conduct in a market where practice is otherwise uneven.

2. Competence: the instruction, not the profession in general

PS 2 requires that a valuer hold sufficient competence for the specific instruction accepted. Not general seniority — competence for this asset, in this market, for this purpose. Three dimensions make it up: technical knowledge (valuation methods, property law, the fiscal treatment of the transaction), knowledge of the local market, and practical experience of the asset class in question.

The consequence is more demanding than it sounds. A valuer based in London cannot value a riad in Marrakech without demonstrable knowledge of the Moroccan market; a generalist cannot take on a hotel or an industrial plant on the strength of residential experience. Where the competence is absent, the standard leaves two routes and no third: decline the instruction, or associate a co-valuer who holds the missing knowledge — and say so in the report.

Grades of membership express the level of responsibility a member may carry, and they are worth knowing when reading a signature block:

• AssocRICS — associate grade: qualified technicians and assistants working under supervision.
• MRICS — qualified member: full competence to sign valuation reports.
• FRICS — fellow: recognition of standing and contribution to the profession.

Verification is straightforward and takes minutes: check the individual on the RICS register, ask for the membership number and grade, and require the report to carry an explicit statement of compliance with the Red Book. A compliant report names the standards it applies rather than gesturing at them. The route into the profession, and what each grade actually demands, is set out in our guide to becoming a certified property expert in Morocco.

3. Independence, objectivity and conflicts of interest

Objectivity is the load-bearing element of a credible valuation. PS 2 imposes strict rules to ensure the value reported is influenced neither by the client's interests nor by the valuer's own. The situations that arise most often in practice are unremarkable in themselves — which is precisely why they have to be declared rather than judged privately:

• The valuer is instructed by a developer whose earlier projects he has already valued, with the risk of accommodation that repeat work carries.
• The valuer holds an interest in a property company active in the same district as the asset.
• The valuer has a family connection with one of the parties to the transaction.
• The valuer's fees are indexed to the value of the asset.

That last case deserves its own treatment, because it is the one a client can settle before instructing anyone. Contingent fees — fees calculated as a percentage of the value reported — are prohibited under RICS standards. The bias is structural rather than hypothetical: the higher the value, the more the valuer is paid. The standard requires fixed or time-based fees, disconnected from the result. In an unregulated market the practice persists, and a client who asks how the fee is computed has already screened out a large part of the problem.

The same logic explains the discipline of rotation where a valuer works repeatedly for the same client on the same portfolio. Familiarity is not misconduct, but it dulls scepticism over time, and periodically bringing in a fresh valuer is how that risk is managed rather than merely acknowledged. What matters for the reader of a report is that the length of the relationship is disclosed, so that it can be weighed.

4. Confidentiality, and the narrow exceptions to it

A valuer is bound to professional secrecy. Information gathered in the course of an instruction — the owner's financial position, an investment strategy, a transaction price — may not be passed to third parties without the client's written agreement. That is the rule, and it is what allows a client to give the valuer the documents the work actually requires.

The exceptions are narrow and worth stating precisely:

• Where the law requires it. Certain disclosures are mandated by the legislation in force and are not left to the valuer's discretion. The scope is defined by the applicable rules and by the terms of the instruction, and both should be confirmed with your own advisers.
• Public interest. Where a valuation reveals matters bearing on public safety — a dangerous structure, hazardous materials, contamination — the valuer has a duty to inform the competent authorities, even absent the client's consent.
• RICS disciplinary process. In a regulatory investigation, the member must produce the documents and information the panel requires, including material that would otherwise be confidential.
• Client consent. Disclosure is permitted where the client agrees in writing. This is the ordinary case: the report is prepared to be shared with an identified recipient, named in the terms of engagement.

That last point has a practical corollary for foreign investors. A valuation is addressed to a client for a stated purpose, and reliance by a third party is a matter to be arranged, not assumed. Where a report is to be used by an auditor, a co-investor or a counterparty, the addressee and the purpose should be fixed at the outset — a subject we develop in our guide to instructing a valuation in Morocco from abroad.

5. Proactive disclosure: what the report itself must say

Beyond conflicts, PS 2 calls for proactive disclosures in the report. The valuer states any prior relationship with the property, the client or the parties; every limitation encountered during the inspection — parts not seen, documents not produced, information taken as declared; and every special assumption adopted in arriving at the value.

A reader unused to valuations sometimes treats these paragraphs as boilerplate, or worse as weakness. The opposite is true. A report containing no limitations at all is a warning sign, not a mark of quality: no real instruction unfolds without limits on investigation, and a valuer who declares none is either concealing them or did not look. The disclosures are what make a conclusion documented and verifiable line by line — the reader can see what was examined, what was assumed, and where the conclusion would move if an assumption failed.

This is exactly the reading an experienced third party performs, and the sequence in which they perform it is set out in our note on how to read a valuation report.

6. What the Moroccan context changes in practice

The principles are universal; the pressures that test them are local. Four features of the Moroccan market make PS 2 both more necessary and harder to apply than in a mature jurisdiction.

• Price opacity. Declared transaction prices do not always reflect the price actually paid. The valuer has to work between the official record and observed market reality, and to say in the report which evidence he relied on and why.
• No local professional body. Absent strong domestic regulation, PS 2 is what separates a qualified professional from a self-declared one. It is a standard the client can verify independently rather than a claim he has to accept.
• Pressure from strong counterparties. Where one party to a transaction carries considerable weight, the standard protects the valuer as much as the client: it supplies a stated framework for declining pressure on the figure, which is a far better position than personal firmness.
• Untitled and irregular stock. A meaningful share of the built stock is not registered. The valuer must disclose the tenure position and adjust the assumptions accordingly rather than value as though the title were clean.

In practice this means adapting the approach without softening the principles. Valuing a condominium unit in Casablanca, for example, extends well beyond estimating a price per square metre: the title has to be checked, the existence of registered bylaws confirmed, and any pending dispute over the building identified — verifications that belong to the instruction because they determine what is actually being valued.

7. The checklist an investor can run in ten minutes

For a foreign investor or an institutional reader, PS 2 converts into a short set of questions that can be put before instructing, and answered from the report afterwards:

• Who signs, and at what grade? A named individual on the RICS register — remembering that the certification attaches to the person, not the firm.
• How is the fee computed? Fixed or time-based. Any percentage of value is disqualifying.
• What relationships are declared? With the asset, the client, the counterparties; and how long the client relationship has run.
• What could the valuer not verify? Stated limitations, special assumptions, and the effect each would have on the conclusion.
• Who is the report addressed to, and for what purpose? Because both are fixed at the outset and both bound the use that may be made of it.

A valuation that survives those five questions can be argued with on the merits. One that does not cannot be repaired by the quality of its arithmetic. The same discipline is what an international auditor applies to a Moroccan asset entering a consolidation, as set out in our note on how an international auditor reads a RICS valuation.

8. What this means for our own practice

Our reports are prepared by RICS-certified expertsand comply with Red Book standards: a named signatory, fees fixed independently of the value reported, relationships declared before acceptance, limitations and special assumptions stated in the report. The conclusions are built to be argued with — named assumptions, cited sources, a stated methodology — which makes them contestable point by point rather than defensible in a block. A private valuation informs a decision and an arm's-length negotiation.

Fees start at 3,500 MAD excl. tax for standard assets, with a firm quote within 24 hours and delivery in 5 to 8 days, 48-72 hours on the express service. ReaConsult has been advising owners, investors and institutional clients since 2019, with more than 5,000 valuations completed, offices in 6 cities and a rating of 4.9/5 across 47 reviews.

Note:this article summarises the professional and ethical requirements the RICS Red Book places on valuers and how they apply to instructions carried out in Morocco. Membership status attaches to individuals and can be verified on the RICS register. Any disclosure obligation arising under the legislation in force should be confirmed with your own advisers. A private valuation informs a decision and an arm's-length negotiation. To instruct us, see our contact page or the property blog.