 Reliant Appraisals upholds the highest professional ethicsWe think of what we do as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.
We have quite a few obligations as appraisers, but first and foremost we answer to our clients.
Normally, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
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 want a copy of the appraisal document, you normally should request it from your lender instead of the appraiser.
Appraisers can also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.
Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Reliant Appraisals makes a part of their standard routine. Reliant Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. There's certainly a conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a greater value with the reward of getting paid more money! Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice explicitly describes unethical behavior 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" in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value. As soon as you engage Reliant Appraisals, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the honesty and integrity we're known for. |
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