 CompChek Appraisal upholds the highest professional ethicsAppraising 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 certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.
We have a lot of obligations as appraisers, but our primary duty is to our clients.
Typically, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
Certain elements relating to an assignment are to be discussed exclusively with the appraiser's client. So, as
a homeowner, if you desire to review the appraisal document, you generally should get it from your lender and not the appraiser.
Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.
There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at CompChek Appraisal you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule. We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Accepting assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is not something we can consider. In other words, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. There's a definite conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value with the reward of getting paid more money! Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice explicitly describes 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" in addition to other situations We diligently 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. With CompChek Appraisal, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service. |
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