Honesty and Integrity: White Sands Appraisal Services

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming 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 rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

The appraiser's main responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, 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 want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at White Sands Appraisal Services.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - something else White Sands Appraisal Services takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would raise the fee. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With White Sands Appraisal Services, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.