Honesty and Integrity: Residential Appraisal Service

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. More often than not, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Residential Appraisal Service.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

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

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. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. 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 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," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Residential Appraisal Service, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.