Honesty and Integrity: Express Appraisals

We have many obligations as appraisers, but our chief duty is to our clients. More often than not, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. It's important to know that a lot of matters pertaining to an assignment are to be discussed with the appraiser's client. As a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you normally have to get it through your lender instead of the appraiser.

Other responsibilities include numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is what we do every day at Express Appraisals.

Appraisers will frequently be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

	Express Appraisals has an established track record for providing appraisals with the highest of ethics. To learn more, contact us.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Express Appraisals makes a part of their standard routine.

We meet or exceed the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. That means we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Anyone should be able to see that inflating a value to achieve a bigger fee is unethical! This isn't how we operate.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice also defines 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to get you an accurate home or property value.

When you engage Express Appraisals, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the principles we're known for.