Honesty and Integrity: (801) 671-3600

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

The appraiser's chief responsibility is to his or her client. More often than not, for a standard 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 require a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the assignment, acquiring and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at (801) 671-3600, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

There are some scenarios in which 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 duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at (801) 671-3600 you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less 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 perhaps the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With (801) 671-3600, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.