Honesty and Integrity: Homefront Appraisals

The appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client. Normally, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of 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 of these matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you generally should obtain it through your lender.

Other obligations include accurate figures appropriate to the scope of the report, reaching and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Homefront Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty 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 assignment.

	Homefront Appraisals has worked hard for its track record for performing appraisals with the highest of ethics. To learn more, contact us.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Homefront Appraisals makes a part of their standard routine.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is not something we can consider. In other words, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. There's certainly a conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a larger value with the reward of getting paid more money! We set ourselves to a higher standard.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice also states a violation in ethics 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you engage Homefront Appraisals, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the business principles we're known for.