Chandler Appraisals upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. 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 have a strict ethical code.

An appraiser's main obligation is to his or her client. Most of the time, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Chandler Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will regularly be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in 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.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Chandler Appraisals takes very seriously.

Chandler Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would raise the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an 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 be assured we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

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