Honesty and Integrity: Edwards Appraisal Service, Inc.

Generally, appraising a long term career. 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.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. More often than not, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Edwards Appraisal Service, Inc., we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Edwards Appraisal Service, Inc. you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We never 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 don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries 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 defined by state law or professional societies 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 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.

With Edwards Appraisal Service, Inc., you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.