 Residential Valuation upholds the highest professional ethicsWe think of our business as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.
We have quite a few obligations as appraisers, but first and foremost we answer to our clients.
Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has retained to maintain independence.
Subsequently, appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, plus many rules and regulations that must be followed. So, as
a homeowner, if you desire a copy of the appraisal document, you generally should obtain it through your lender instead of the appraiser.
In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.
Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - something else Residential Valuation diligently adheres to. Residential Valuation holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Accepting orders based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. In other words, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. Anyone should be able to see that inflating a value to achieve a higher paycheck is unethical! We just don't do it. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") also states 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", or "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 provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value. With Residential Valuation, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service. |
|||||||||
