Honesty and Integrity: Craft Appraisal Services

We think of our job as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Generally, for a normal 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 want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Craft Appraisal Services.

Appraisers will regularly need 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 duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at Craft Appraisal Services you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

Craft Appraisal Services holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don'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 industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Craft Appraisal Services we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.