For honest and ethical appraisals, rely on The Appraisal Company

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming 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 as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our main obligation is to their client. Generally, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to review the appraisal document, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the assignment, reaching and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at The Appraisal Company.

In some cases appraisers will 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 responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at The Appraisal Company you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other improper 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 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With The Appraisal Company, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.