 Tomich & Associates, LLC upholds the utmost professional ethicsAppraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.
An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client.
Normally, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
Certain elements relating to an assignment are to be shared with the appraiser's client. As
a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you generally should request it through your lender instead of the appraiser.
In some cases appraisers will 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 restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.
There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Tomich & Associates, LLC you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Accepting orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. There's certainly a conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value with the reward of getting paid more money! Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value. As soon as you order an appraisal from Tomich & Associates, LLC, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the business principles we're known for. |
|||||||||
