A-Z Residential Appraisals maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is generally a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. 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 to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at A-Z Residential Appraisals.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at A-Z Residential Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. 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 industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from A-Z Residential Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.