 Honesty and Integrity: The Appraisal SourceAppraising is typically a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.
An appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client.
Normally, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
It's important to know that certain elements pertaining to an assignment are to be discussed exclusively with the appraiser's client. As
a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it through your lender instead of the appraiser.
Appraisers will regularly be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those 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 with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else The Appraisal Source takes very seriously. The Appraisal Source holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is not something we can consider. In other words, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. There's an obvious conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a greater value with the reward of getting paid more money! This isn't how we operate. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice also states a violation in ethics 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to get you an accurate home or property value. As soon as you request an appraisal from The Appraisal Source, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the honesty and integrity we're known for. |
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