Honesty and Integrity: Watermark Appraisal Services

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Typically, for a regular 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 a copy of an appraisal report, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Watermark Appraisal Services.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Watermark Appraisal Services you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to 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 appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would raise the fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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 working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Watermark Appraisal Services we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.