For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Beatty Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why 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 have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you would like a copy of an appraisal report, you should obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, attaining and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Beatty Appraisals.

Appraisers can regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Beatty Appraisals takes very seriously.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries 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 defined by state law or professional societies that the 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," 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 objectively determine the home or property value.

With Beatty Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.