For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Lawrence McGuire

We think of our job as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our main responsibility is to his or her client. Generally, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you require to review the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the report, reaching and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Lawrence McGuire.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only 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 backup their work files for at least five years - something else Lawrence McGuire takes very seriously.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible 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 collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional 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 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 objectively determine the home or property value.

With Lawrence McGuire, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.