Village Appraisal Ltd. maintains the highest professional ethics

We think of our business as a profession. 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 considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the nature of the report, reaching and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Village Appraisal Ltd..

Appraisers may also 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 limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Village Appraisal Ltd. you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. 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 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Village Appraisal Ltd., you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.