Golden Crescent Appraisals upholds the highest professional ethics

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

An appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you want a copy of the appraisal document, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Golden Crescent Appraisals.

Appraisers can regularly have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Golden Crescent Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Golden Crescent Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.