Abbey Appraisal & Consulting upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client. Generally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Abbey Appraisal & Consulting.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third 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 clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Abbey Appraisal & Consulting diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) 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," "the amount of a value opinion," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Abbey Appraisal & Consulting, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.