Honesty and Integrity: John Gregory Appraisals

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

For an appraiser the main responsibility is to his or her client. More often than not, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at John Gregory Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at John Gregory Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. 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 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from John Gregory Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.