Honesty and Integrity: Legacy Appraisal Services

We think of what we do as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the primary obligation is to his or her client. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, attaining and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Legacy Appraisal Services.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Legacy Appraisal Services takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Legacy Appraisal Services, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.