Honesty and Integrity: The Utah Appraiser

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Generally, 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 require to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and sustaining a particular 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 The Utah Appraiser.

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

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at The Utah Appraiser you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With The Utah Appraiser, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.