Ask Pat About Appraisals maintains the utmost professional ethics

We think of our job as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our main obligation is to their client. Generally, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Ask Pat About Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Ask Pat About Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don'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 professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Ask Pat About 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.