Honesty and Integrity: Camelot Appraisals

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

An appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, 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 require to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and sustaining 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 Camelot Appraisals.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - something else Camelot Appraisals makes a part of their standard routine.

Camelot Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations to which an 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 rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Camelot Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.