 For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Brett E. Patron & Associates LLCAppraising 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 in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.
We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers, but above everything we answer to our clients.
Normally, for a typical 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 contracted in order to maintain independence.
It follows that appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney, can only discuss many of these matters with their client. As
a homeowner, if you want a copy of an appraisal report, you normally should obtain it from your lender and not the appraiser.
Appraisers can frequently have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both 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 limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.
There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Brett E. Patron & Associates LLC takes very seriously. We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. In other words, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. Anyone should be able to see that inflating a value to achieve a bigger fee is unethical! We just don't do it. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") explicitly describes a violation in ethics as the acceptance 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to get you an accurate home or property value. When you order an appraisal from Brett E. Patron & Associates LLC, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the business principles we're known for. |
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