Honesty and Integrity: ABATELLI REAL ESTATE APPRAISALS

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. 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 dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

The appraiser's chief obligation is to his or her client. Generally, 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 want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the nature of the report, reaching and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at ABATELLI REAL ESTATE APPRAISALS, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will frequently be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else ABATELLI REAL ESTATE APPRAISALS takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the value of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics 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 rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With ABATELLI REAL ESTATE APPRAISALS, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.