Honesty and Integrity: Carolina Appraisal Solutions

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a certified appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So, it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to his or her client. Most of the time, for a typical residential appraisal, 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 would like to review the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and keeping a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Carolina Appraisal Solutions.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Carolina Appraisal Solutions makes a part of their standard routine.

Carolina Appraisal Solutions holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other improper 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 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Carolina Appraisal Solutions, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.