Honesty and Integrity: V C Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Most of the time, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at V C Appraisals.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at V C Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

V C Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would increase the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states a violation in ethics 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from V C 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.