Honesty and Integrity: Simz Appraisal Services

Appraising is typically a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have many responsibilities 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 certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require a copy of the appraisal document, you should request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Simz Appraisal Services.

Appraisers can regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited 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 duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - something else Simz Appraisal Services takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," 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.

When you request an appraisal from Simz Appraisal Services we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.