Appraisal Pro maintains the highest professional ethics

We consider our our job a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. More often than not, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you would like a copy of an appraisal report, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Appraisal Pro, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Appraisal Pro you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to 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 perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would increase 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 states 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 working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Appraisal Pro, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.