Whittaker Realty Appraisals upholds the highest professional ethics

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

As appraisers our primary responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the report, attaining and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Whittaker Realty Appraisals.

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Whittaker Realty Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

Whittaker Realty Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Whittaker Realty Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.