Fair, Honest, and Ethical appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become 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 certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you want 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's nature, acquiring and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Fruitticher-Lowery Appraisal Group, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers, and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Fruitticher-Lowery Appraisal Group you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

Fruitticher-Lowery Appraisal Group holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don'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 probably the appraisal professions most important rule because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would raise their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional 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 of 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 diligently 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 Fruitticher-Lowery Appraisal Group, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent professional service.