For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Snider Appraisal

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 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 have a strict ethical code.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Most of the time, for a typical residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you desire to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Snider Appraisal, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Snider Appraisal takes very seriously.

Snider Appraisal holds itself to 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 are not able to 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 up 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 organizations that the appraiser belongs.

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

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