California Certified Appraisers upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is typically a long term career. 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 certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have many obligations as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Generally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you generally have to get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the scope of the report, reaching and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at California Certified Appraisers.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else California Certified Appraisers diligently adheres to.

California Certified Appraisers holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior as accepting 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 doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With California Certified Appraisers, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.