For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Patrick Laughlin

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and keeping a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Patrick Laughlin.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

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 Patrick Laughlin you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

While working on an appraisal, we follow 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 the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would increase the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined 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 accepting 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 rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Patrick Laughlin we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.