First Class Appraisals, Inc maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the scope of the assignment, acquiring and keeping an adequate 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 First Class Appraisals, Inc.

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

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 First Class Appraisals, Inc you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won't 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 biggest taboo, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would increase the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established 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 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 be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With First Class Appraisals, Inc, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.