For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Preferred Property Appraisers

Appraising is typically a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult 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. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. More often than not, for a typical residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the report, acquiring and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Preferred Property Appraisers, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

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

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Preferred Property Appraisers you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. 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 inflate 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 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Preferred Property Appraisers we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.