Honesty and Integrity: Fountain Appraisals

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So 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 must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's primary obligation is to his or her client. Normally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the assignment, acquiring and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Fountain Appraisals.

Appraisers will often be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Fountain Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would up the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

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