Honesty and Integrity: Port City Appraisals

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the report, acquiring and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Port City Appraisals.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

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

Port City Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won'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. We don't do 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 up the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the 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 at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

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