Honesty and Integrity: Next Step Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you require to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Next Step Appraisals.

Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Next Step Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the value of the home would increase the fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Next Step Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.