 Skylight Evaluations upholds the utmost professional ethicsWe consider our job as a profession. 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 definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.
We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers, but above everything we answer to our clients.
Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
Consequently, appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, plus strict rules and regulations to which we must adhere. So, as
a homeowner, if you desire a copy of the appraisal document, you normally should get it through your lender and not the appraiser.
Appraisers will frequently be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.
There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Skylight Evaluations you can rest assured that we stick to that rule. We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Accepting orders based on contingency fees is never an option. In other words, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. It should be obvious that fabricating a home's value to achieve a higher fee is unethical! We set ourselves to a higher standard. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") clearly describes 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value. With Skylight Evaluations, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service. |
|||||||||
