Honesty and Integrity: Alder Real Estate Appraisals

Generally, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Normally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, acquiring and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Alder Real Estate Appraisals.

Appraisers can regularly have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

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 Alder Real Estate Appraisals diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don't 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 probably the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Alder Real Estate Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.