 For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Don C. Box and AssociatesTypically, appraising is a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.
An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client.
Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has contracted in order to maintain independence.
Consequently, appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, plus many rules and regulations controlling with whom we share information. As
a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally should obtain it via your lender and not the appraiser.
In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.
Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Don C. Box and Associates diligently adheres to. When working on an order, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Accepting orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is not something we can consider. In other words, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. There's an obvious conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a greater value and then get paid more money! We just don't do it. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice also describes a violation in ethics as the acceptance 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", or "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 doing everything we can to get you an accurate home or property value. With Don C. Box and Associates, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service. |
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