![]() The Property Shop of the Carolinas, LLC. maintains the highest professional ethicsWe consider what we do as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.
We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers, but our primary duty is to our clients.
Typically, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
Certain elements relating to an assignment are to be shared exclusively with the appraiser's client. So, as
a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally should obtain it through your lender instead of the appraiser.
There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed 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 things in the framework of the job.
There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at The Property Shop of the Carolinas, LLC. you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule. When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. There's certainly a conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value and then get paid more money! We just don't do it. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to get you an accurate home or property value. With The Property Shop of the Carolinas, LLC., you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service. |