Honesty and Integrity: Appraisals 911

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to his or her client. Generally, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the nature of the assignment, attaining and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Appraisals 911, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers may regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Appraisals 911 you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would increase the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior as the acceptance of an assignment that is contingent on "the reporting of a pre-determined result (e.g., opinion of value)," "a direction in assignment results that favors the cause of the client," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Appraisals 911, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.