The Appraisal Shoppe upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our main responsibility is to their client. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at The Appraisal Shoppe, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at The Appraisal Shoppe you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

The Appraisal Shoppe holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We never 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 perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We don't do that. 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 defines 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 rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you engage The Appraisal Shoppe we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.