For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Timothy Doody

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

An appraiser's main obligation is to their client. Generally, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you desire to review the appraisal document, you should request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Timothy Doody.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Timothy Doody you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Timothy Doody, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.