Honesty and Integrity: New Century Appraising

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's primary responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you desire a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters 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 New Century Appraising, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

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

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else New Century Appraising takes very seriously.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don'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 professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would up the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With New Century Appraising, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.