For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Crawford Romans Appraisal Services

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many obligations as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Crawford Romans Appraisal Services.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, 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 keep their work files for at least five years - something else Crawford Romans Appraisal Services takes very seriously.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. 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 unethical behavior 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Crawford Romans Appraisal Services, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.