All Access Appraisals maintains the highest professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the primary 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 want to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the report, acquiring and maintaining a certain 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 All Access Appraisals.

Appraisers will sometimes be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at All Access Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

When working on an order, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing orders on 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 industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would increase the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," "the amount of a value opinion," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage All Access Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.