Honesty and Integrity: Coe Appraisals

We think of what we do as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, 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 normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, acquiring and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Coe Appraisals.

Appraisers will often be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

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 - something else Coe Appraisals takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics 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 confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Coe Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.