Real Estate and Appraisal upholds the utmost professional ethicsWe consider our our job a profession. 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 called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code. For an appraiser the main obligation is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you should request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the report, reaching and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Real Estate and Appraisal. ![]() Real Estate and Appraisal has an established reputation for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more Contact us There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment. Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Real Estate and Appraisal takes very seriously. We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would up the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs. The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value. As soon as you request an appraisal from Real Estate and Appraisal we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for. |