West Appraisals upholds the utmost professional ethics

Typically, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to their client. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you should request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at West Appraisals.

Appraisers may often have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility 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 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 - something else West Appraisals takes very seriously.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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 rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With West Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.