Estate surveyors beam searchlight on intangible assets

The Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON), has put in place a mechanism to beam searchlights on other areas of the profession in order to widen opportunities and potential for the professionals.

To this end, the board called on its members to unlock potential in emerging areas of their profession like the valuation of intangible assets and intellectual property.

Chairman of the Board, Gersh Henshaw, who spoke during the 2023 Valuers’ Assembly in Lagos at the weekend said it was high time the practitioners focused on “recondite areas” of the profession.

The assembly had as its theme, “Regulating Other Areas of Estate Surveying and Valuation Profession”.

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Henshaw said: “How long shall we wait to explore and tap into some of the recondite areas of our profession?

“We have remained constricted by the narrow and restrictive definition of estate surveying and valuation as merely a profession by our enabling Act without recourse to the fact that the profession itself has a very wide vista of aspects and opportunities.”

The chairman explained that the Board had chosen to dwell on valuation of intangible assets and intellectual property in line with the globally accepted IVS 210.

The IVS 210 is an international valuation standard that guides the valuing of intangible assets such as trademarks, patents, customers relationship, among others.

The chairman also emphasised the need to uphold ethics and standards of the profession, reiterating its readiness to discipline any erring member.

Vice Chairman of ESVARBON, Pastor Stephen Jagun, called on members to be courageous to report complaints of any infraction, assuring that decisive action would be taken against all defaulters.

He said: “The problem with many of us is that we like to gossip about infractions, but we don’t like to make official complaints.

“The board has a disciplinary committee in place to deal with all cases of infractions. We also have the tribunal in place.

“Let us be courageous to come up with complaints officially. I assure you that, if we make proper entry of any unethical behaviours of estate surveyors and valuers, the board will do the needful.’

In his paper, “Valuation of Intangible Assets and Intellectual Property”, the guest speaker, Raymond Rath who joined virtually from the United States of America said intangible assets are goldmines that can be tapped by the practitioners.

Noting that competitive advantage of organisations is increasingly driven by intangible assets, he said intangible assets have unlimited scale.