Honesty and Integrity: First Service Appraisal, Inc.

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So 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.

For an appraiser the main obligation is to their client. Most of the time, for a standard 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 obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at First Service Appraisal, Inc. .

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

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 at least five years - at First Service Appraisal, Inc. you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

While busy with an appraisal, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't 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 professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With First Service Appraisal, Inc. , you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.