 Honesty and Integrity: a la mode, inc.Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.
We have quite a few obligations as appraisers, but our main duty is to our clients.
Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has retained to maintain independence.
Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney, can only discuss many of these matters with their client. As
a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally should obtain it from your lender and not the appraiser.
Appraisers may also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of 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 job.
Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at a la mode, inc. you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. We meet or exceed the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Accepting assignments based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. In other words, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. It should be apparent to anyone that fabricating a home's value to achieve a higher paycheck is unethical! This isn't how we operate. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") also 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" as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to get you an accurate home or property value. When you order an appraisal from a la mode, inc., we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the high ethical standards we're known for. |
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