Brownlee Appraisals maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. More often than not, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Brownlee Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of 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 things in the framework of the assignment.

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

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would raise the their paycheck. 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 defines 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," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Brownlee Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.