Capital City Valuation upholds the utmost professional ethics

Generally, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. 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 must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have quite a few 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 have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Capital City Valuation.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities 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 responsibility is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - something else Capital City Valuation makes a part of their standard routine.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on 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 perhaps the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Capital City Valuation 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.