Honesty and Integrity: Shoup Appraisal

We think of our business as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you would like to review an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters 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 is what we do everyday at Shoup Appraisal.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, 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 store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Shoup Appraisal you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

Shoup Appraisal holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees 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. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Shoup Appraisal, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.