Honesty and Integrity: Carolina Appraisals, Inc.

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So 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 have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Most of the time, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Carolina Appraisals, Inc..

Appraisers can often have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Carolina Appraisals, Inc. you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would inflate the their paycheck. 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 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

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