For honest and ethical appraisals, rely on Appraisals Online, IncAppraising is typically a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age 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.
The appraiser's chief responsibility is to their client.
Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
Consequently, appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney, can only discuss many of these matters with their client. As
a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you generally have to get it through your lender.
Appraisers will sometimes be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary role is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.
There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Appraisals Online, Inc you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Accepting assignments based on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to 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 larger value with the reward of getting paid more money! We set ourselves to a higher standard. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") explicitly defines 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value. When you request an appraisal from Appraisals Online, Inc, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the honesty and integrity we're known for. |