Honesty and Integrity: Lakeview Appraisals

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Most of the time, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you generally have to request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Lakeview Appraisals.

Appraisers may frequently have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, 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 things in the framework of the assignment.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Lakeview Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can'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 probably 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 unethical 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 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," as well as other situations. We diligently 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 Lakeview Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.