For honest and ethical appraisals, rely on Tri County Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

As appraisers our main responsibility is to their client. Typically, 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 review the appraisal document, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Tri County Appraisals.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out 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 order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Tri County Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Tri County Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.