Personally I would be more concerned about potential future Liability with a borrower or client than with the USPAP police. In these situations , especially when the OP says the original report is more credible. In this case the appraiser has no reason to make an-assumption. He already determined the original report is the superior report.
Devils Advocate : If this was not an-issue why would the client care if the appraiser placed the most weight on the superior report, and to protect all parties why not include both reports and analyses in the report ? In cases where something is known to be a fact the person or company who acts, or fails to act, or conceals a fact, does not even need to intend to be deceptive or misleading to be found guilty of violating USPAP or Real Estate Law. The appraiser could even invoke an-Extraordinary or Hypothetical Assumption, but if the appraiser ever gets pinned in a corner and admits he knowingly chose to use information that was less credible or not reliable he is now in a USPAP sandwich. If a State Board got involved , I have have serious doubts the appraiser could wiggle his way around the facts by using assumptions. This same problem arises when appraisers believe their boiler plate disclaimers will absolve them of something that they knew to be false. A worse situation would be if one of the Intended users or clients turned on the appraiser, claiming they suffered monetary damages because the superior report would have resulted in a higher value or the inferior report may have substantially underestimated, the cost of repairs, replacements or mitigation of some other issue that had not been reported in the inferior report.
In Real Estate Law suits a good attorney will get the appraiser in deposition or on the stand and if he can get the appraiser to admit that he had full and complete knowledge his next step would be to get the appraiser to admit he believed that Report-A was the more credible and Report-B therefore was not used. The use of the Extraordinary Assumption , fails the test because, the appraiser already knows that Report-A is the more credible report and so discovery has already been established. A hypothetical condition is made contrary to fact, the appraiser states that the original report is the more credible one so if he assumed for the purpose of discussion, analysis, or formulation of opinions, what is the basis for the assumption other than someone hoping the Superior Report is never discovered ?
Note : This is not aimed at the Original Poster, I believe he has no agenda and is trying to do this right otherwise he would have never posted it. This is also not so much about USPAP but about how it works in Real Estate Law. The invocation of an-assumption , when it's "contrary to a known fact" can be a land mine. If that assumption was known by the appraiser to be false at the time it was declared ? and later resulted in a loss of value or a substantially higher dollar cost to mitigate, repairs or improvements. At this juncture the appraisers defense starts to get real wonky especially if that assumption was at the direction of the appraisers client, because it may have created a conflict with the appraisers scope of work.
The way I would do this : Just Saying:
Appraiser to Disclose that he has read and reviewed both reports and that in his Opinion and Judgement the Report-A was found to be more credible, and the most weight was placed on it to arrive at any conclusions that would effect his final opinion of market value, and or cost to cure or mitigate some repair or replacement. Then disclose that he also reviewed and analyzed Report-B and considered it , but placed less weight and credibility on it because he did did not consider it to as thorough, accurate, or credible as the original Report-A.
