Honesty and Integrity: Tradition Appraisal GroupAppraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.We have a lot of obligations as appraisers, but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has hired in order to maintain independence. Appraisers are typically limited to only disclosing their findings to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender instead of the appraiser.
There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, 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 is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.
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 - something else Tradition Appraisal Group makes a part of their standard routine. When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. In other words, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Anyone should be able to see that inflating a value to achieve a bigger paycheck is unethical! This isn't how we operate. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") clearly describes unethical behavior 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", or "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 going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value. With Tradition Appraisal Group, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service. |
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