Honesty and Integrity: Greater Houston Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. More often than not, for a typical 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 desire to review the appraisal document, you generally have to request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the report, attaining and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Greater Houston Appraisals.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework 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 Greater Houston Appraisals takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would up the fee. 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 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Greater Houston Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.