Honesty and Integrity: BT Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. 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 unquestionably be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to his or her client. Generally, for a typical 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 would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and keeping an adequate 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 BT Appraisals.

Appraisers will often be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at BT Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. 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 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

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