Loving Appraisals maintains the highest Professional Ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a Certified or Licensed Appraiser have increased to a level never seen before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Normally, for a regular residential appraisal, the Appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the Appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Loving Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll 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.

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 Loving Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

When working on an assignment, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We have a responsibility not to do assignments based on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the Appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP), the state and federal guidelines by which Appraisers appraise, 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 at ease knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Loving Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.