For honest and ethical appraisals, rely on West Michigan Appraisals

Generally, appraising a long term career. 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 certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. More often than not, for a regular 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 obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, reaching and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at West Michigan Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at West Michigan Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

West Michigan Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don'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 up 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 that the appraiser belongs.

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

With West Michigan Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.