Promontory Appraisal Services upholds the highest professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our primary responsibility is to their client. Most of the time, in residential practice, 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 to review an appraisal report, you should obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Promontory Appraisal Services.

Appraisers can frequently have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty 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 with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - something else Promontory Appraisal Services diligently adheres to.

Promontory Appraisal Services holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines 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 collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Promontory Appraisal Services 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.