For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Associate Appraisals

Appraising is typically a long term career. Requirements to become 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 rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, 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 want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining a certain 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 Associate Appraisals.

Appraisers can often 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 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 store their work files for at least five years - something else Associate Appraisals takes very seriously.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don'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 most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Associate Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.