Honesty and Integrity: Bay Cities Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our main obligation is to his or her client. Typically, 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 require a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Bay Cities Appraisals.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

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 - at Bay Cities Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

Bay Cities Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won'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 payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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 assured we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Bay Cities Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.