Honesty and Integrity: Middle Tennessee Appraisers

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 definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our chief obligation is to their client. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Middle Tennessee Appraisers.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Middle Tennessee Appraisers you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established 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 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 be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Middle Tennessee Appraisers, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.