For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Wesley Hain

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. 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 unquestionably be considered 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 above everything we answer to our clients. Normally, 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 get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring 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 just normal course of business for us at Wesley Hain.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those third 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 standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Wesley Hain makes a part of their standard routine.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't 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 professions biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

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

As soon as you engage Wesley Hain we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.