Appraisal Power maintains the highest professional ethics

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

We have many obligations as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Most of the time, for a typical residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you desire a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Appraisal Power.

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

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Appraisal Power takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the 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 be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Appraisal Power, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.