Honesty and Integrity: Salvatore Appraisals, LLC

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer 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 rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you desire a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Salvatore Appraisals, LLC, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers can frequently have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those 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 clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at Salvatore Appraisals, LLC you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. We don't 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 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 unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Salvatore Appraisals, LLC, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.