Honesty and Integrity: Collateral Appraisers, Inc.

We think of our business as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to his or her client. Most of the time, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the report, reaching and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Collateral Appraisers, Inc..

Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of 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 limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Collateral Appraisers, Inc. takes very seriously.

Collateral Appraisers, Inc. holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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 rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Collateral Appraisers, Inc., you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.