The conditional conservatism at publicly held real estate developers’ financial statements in Brazil

Abstract

Assuring the quality of accounting information, the Orientação do Comitê de Pronunciamentos Contábeis OCPC 04 gave a new interpretation to the Interpretação do Comitê de Pronunciamentos Contábeis - ICPC 02 (IFRIC 15), which integrated the international standards according the local Brazilian real estate developers’ characteristics. This work aims to observe and analyze the conditional conservatism of publicly held real estate developers. Due to the dimension and persistency of accruals, linked to long operating cycle, was established the hypothesis of a differentiated level of conservatism of developers. Therefore, two models were used: i) according to Basu's (1997) Original Model of losses recognition; and ii) the Adapted Model, derived from the Original Model, which capturing only the real estate developers’ conservatism. The result of the applications these models showed superior conditional conservatism of real estate developers, which means that developers recognize timelier its losses-. Several features of the sector justify this result, as your operational characteristics, the method of revenue recognition, corporate governance practices, and the politics to review budgeted costs. Lastly, this result became interest to possible shifts in revenue recognition to real estate sell contracts in Brazil. The IASB pronounced itself favorable to revenue recognition only in keys delivery, that may represent a regression to current method at real estate developer’ financial statement.