Honesty and Integrity: Appraise-It

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the chief responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, 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 want to review an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Appraise-It.

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

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Appraise-It you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can'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 professions biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states a violation in ethics as accepting 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Appraise-It, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.