Honesty and Integrity: Berlin Appraisal Company

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to his or her client. Most of the time, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. 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 desire to review an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Berlin Appraisal Company.

Appraisers may sometimes have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, 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 store their work files for at least five years - at Berlin Appraisal Company you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Berlin Appraisal Company, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.