Honesty and Integrity: Performance Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Most of the time, for a typical residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and keeping an appropriate 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 Performance Appraisals.

Appraisers can regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

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 - something else Performance Appraisals takes very seriously.

We demand 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 payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would up the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical 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 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," "the amount of a value opinion," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Performance Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.