Honesty and Integrity: Sidler Appraisal Services

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. 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.

For an appraiser the primary responsibility is to their client. More often than not, 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 to review an appraisal report, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, acquiring and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Sidler Appraisal Services.

Appraisers will sometimes be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at Sidler Appraisal Services you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to 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 biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

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