Honesty and Integrity: Cornerstone AppraisalAppraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly 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 responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require a copy of an appraisal report, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Cornerstone Appraisal. Cornerstone Appraisal has worked hard for its reputation for providing competent and ethically superior appraisals. Contact us today to learn more. Appraisers can sometimes have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment. Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Cornerstone Appraisal you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is never an option. 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 perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs. The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," "the amount of a value opinion," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value. With Cornerstone Appraisal, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service. |