Honesty and Integrity: Metro Appraisals

Appraising is typically a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Metro Appraisals.

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Metro Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

Metro Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional 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 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," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Metro 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.