Ray Hall Appraisals maintains the utmost professional ethics

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 in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. More often than not, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you want a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and keeping a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Ray Hall Appraisals.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Ray Hall Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably 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 don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you engage Ray Hall Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.