Woods & Waters Real Estate upholds the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

For an appraiser the chief obligation is to his or her client. More often than not, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring and sustaining an appropriate 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 Woods & Waters Real Estate.

Appraisers will frequently be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Woods & Waters Real Estate you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can'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 biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior as the acceptance 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 rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Woods & Waters Real Estate we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.