Elite Appraisal Services maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our main obligation is to their client. Normally, in residential practice, 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 would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the assignment, reaching and keeping a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Elite Appraisal Services.

There are some scenarios in which 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 responsibility is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Elite Appraisal Services you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Elite Appraisal Services we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.