maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. 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 considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

We have many obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Most of the time, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at .

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only 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 duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would raise the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical 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 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," 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 provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.