Douglas Appraisals upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Generally, for a standard residential appraisal, 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 desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and sustaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Douglas Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers can regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Douglas Appraisals takes very seriously.

We demand 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 get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the value of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper 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 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 be confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

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