Honesty and Integrity: Tradewinds Appraisals, LLCAppraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.We have a lot of obligations as appraisers, but our primary duty is to our clients. Normally, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has contracted in order to maintain independence. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, plus many rules and regulations that must be followed. So, as a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally should get it from your lender instead of the appraiser.
In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only 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 standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Tradewinds Appraisals, LLC makes a part of their standard routine. We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Accepting assignments based on contingency fees is never an option. That means we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. It should be apparent to anyone that fabricating a property's value to achieve what amounts to a bigger fee is unethical! Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") explicitly states 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", or "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 get you an accurate home or property value. As soon as you engage Tradewinds Appraisals, LLC, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the honesty and integrity we're known for. |
|||||||||
