High Country Appraisals www.highcountryappraisals.com upholds the utmost professional ethics

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

As appraisers our chief obligation is to their client. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. 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 desire to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and sustaining 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 High Country Appraisals www.highcountryappraisals.com.

Appraisers will regularly be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited 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 clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else High Country Appraisals www.highcountryappraisals.com diligently adheres to.

While busy with an order, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on assignments that contingency fees is never an option. 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 professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from High Country Appraisals www.highcountryappraisals.com we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.