Honesty and Integrity: Seibel Appraisal

We think of what we do as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have quite a few obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you generally have to request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Seibel Appraisal, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will sometimes be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Seibel Appraisal takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined 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 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 be confident we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

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