 Honesty and Integrity: Houston Appraisals LLCAppraising is, by and large, a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why 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 have a strict ethical code.
An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client.
Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has hired in order to maintain independence.
It follows that appraisers are typically restricted to only disclosing their findings to their clients, so as
a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it through your lender.
In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.
There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Houston Appraisals LLC you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. There's an obvious conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value and then get paid more money! This isn't how we operate. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice clearly 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to get you an accurate home or property value. As soon as you order an appraisal from Houston Appraisals LLC, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the high ethical standards we're known for. |
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