For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Hyatt Appraisal CompanyWe think of our job as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.
An appraiser's chief obligation is to their client.
More often than not, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
It follows that appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, plus strict rules and regulations controlling with whom we share information. So, as
a homeowner, if you want a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it via your lender.
In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary role is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.
There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Hyatt Appraisal Company you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule. When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. In other words, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Anyone should be able to see that fabricating a property's value to achieve a bigger fee is unethical! We set ourselves to a higher standard. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") also states unethical behavior 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", or "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 get you an accurate home or property value. With Hyatt Appraisal Company, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service. |