Honesty and Integrity: Skinner Appraisal Services

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming 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.

As appraisers our main responsibility is to their client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, attaining and maintaining an adequate 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 Skinner Appraisal Services.

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of 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 roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Skinner Appraisal Services takes very seriously.

Skinner Appraisal Services holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on 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 professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the 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," as well as 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.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Skinner Appraisal Services we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.