![]() Honesty and Integrity: Summit City Appraisals, LLCWe consider what we do as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.
The appraiser's chief responsibility is to their client.
Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has retained to maintain independence.
It follows that appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, plus strict rules and regulations controlling with whom we share information. So, as
a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally should request it via your lender and not the appraiser.
Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.
Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Summit City Appraisals, LLC takes very seriously. We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Working on orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is not something we can consider. In other words, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. There's a definite conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value and then get paid more money! We just don't do it. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") explicitly 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value. With Summit City Appraisals, LLC, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service. |