 Honesty and Integrity: Leese Appraisal ServiceWe consider our business as a profession. 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 certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.
The appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client.
Normally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has hired in order to maintain independence.
It follows that appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney, can only discuss many of these matters with their client. As
a homeowner, if you desire to review the appraisal document, you generally have to get it via your lender and not the appraiser.
Appraisers can also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility 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.
There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Leese Appraisal Service you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. We meet or exceed the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Accepting orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is not something we can consider. That means we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. It should be obvious that inflating a value to achieve a higher paycheck is unethical! This isn't how we operate. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value. As soon as you order an appraisal from Leese Appraisal Service, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the honesty and integrity we're known for. |
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