Honesty and Integrity: Appraisal Pro Group

Appraising is generally a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So 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 must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the main responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you generally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the assignment, reaching and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Appraisal Pro Group.

Appraisers will frequently be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Appraisal Pro Group you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to 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 can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would up the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Appraisal Pro Group, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.