For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Carolyn Davis

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Most of the time, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Carolyn Davis.

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Carolyn Davis takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can'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 professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also 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," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Carolyn Davis, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.