 Honesty and Integrity: JRBaskett, Inc.By and large, appraising is a long term career. Requirements to become 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 unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.
An appraiser's primary obligation is to their client.
Most of the time, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has retained to maintain independence.
Subsequently, appraisers are typically restricted to only disclosing their findings to their clients, so as
a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to obtain it from your lender and not the appraiser.
There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary role is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.
Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at JRBaskett, Inc. you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Accepting orders based on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. There's a definite conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a larger value with the reward of getting paid more money! This isn't how we operate. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice clearly describes 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 working hard to objectively determine the home or property value. With JRBaskett, Inc., you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service. |
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