Honesty and Integrity: Valued Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to review an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Valued Appraisals , we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers may frequently have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Valued Appraisals takes very seriously.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices 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 that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Valued Appraisals , you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.