Honesty and Integrity: Whitehouse Appraisals

Appraising is generally a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Generally, for a typical residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the nature of the report, acquiring and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Whitehouse Appraisals.

Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited 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 store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Whitehouse Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

Whitehouse Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We can'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 the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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 confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Whitehouse 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.