Honesty and Integrity: Elliott Appraisal

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So 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 have a strict ethical code.

For an appraiser the main obligation is to his or her client. More often than not, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Elliott Appraisal.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Elliott Appraisal you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible 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 invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the fee. We don't do that. 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 defines 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," 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 provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Elliott Appraisal we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.