First American Staff Appraisals upholds the highest professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the chief obligation is to their client. Most of the time, for a typical 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 require to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at First American Staff Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at First American Staff Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With First American Staff Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.