ADL Appraisals maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days 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 ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the primary obligation is to his or her client. Normally, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at ADL Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to 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 duty is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

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 a minimum of five years - at ADL Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With ADL Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.