For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Hunt Appraisal LLC

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have many obligations as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, 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 confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Hunt Appraisal LLC.

Appraisers will frequently be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll 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.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Hunt Appraisal LLC you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would up the fee. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Hunt Appraisal LLC, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.