Pine State Appraisals maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. 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 keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you desire to review the appraisal document, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the report, attaining and keeping 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 Pine State Appraisals.

Appraisers may regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Pine State Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We won'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 payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations 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 at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you engage Pine State 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.