Honesty and Integrity: Walker Brothers Appraisal & Real Estate

Typically, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

For an appraiser the primary obligation is to his or her client. More often than not, for a typical residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you should request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Walker Brothers Appraisal & Real Estate.

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 listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Walker Brothers Appraisal & Real Estate diligently adheres to.

While working on an assignment, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't 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 perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from Walker Brothers Appraisal & Real Estate we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.