Honesty and Integrity: City Realty, IncAppraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.
The appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client.
Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has retained to maintain independence.
It's important to know that many elements pertaining to an assignment are to be discussed with the appraiser's client. So, as
a homeowner, if you desire a copy of the appraisal document, you generally should obtain it from your lender and not the appraiser.
Appraisers can also 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 duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.
Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else City Realty, Inc makes a part of their standard routine. When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on assignments based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. In other words, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. It should be apparent to anyone that inflating a value to achieve what amounts to a bigger paycheck is unethical! Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") clearly describes 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value. With City Realty, Inc, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service. |