Honesty and Integrity: Seaside Appraisals

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

As appraisers our chief obligation is to his or her client. Most of the time, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and sustaining an adequate 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 Seaside Appraisals.

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

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Seaside Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

Seaside Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would up the fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be defined 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 be assured we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you engage Seaside 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.