Honesty and Integrity: Trina Walters

Typically, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called 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 our primary duty is to our clients. Generally, for a typical residential appraisal, 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 require to review the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the report, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Trina Walters, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

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 - at Trina Walters you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

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

When you order an appraisal from Trina Walters we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.