Honesty and Integrity: Brown Appraisal Associates

Appraising is typically a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have quite a few obligations as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, for a regular 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 require to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Brown Appraisal Associates.

Appraisers may sometimes have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Brown Appraisal Associates diligently adheres to.

Brown Appraisal Associates holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. 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 probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations 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 doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Brown Appraisal Associates we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.