Honesty and Integrity: a la mode

Typically, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, 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 require to review an appraisal report, you generally have to request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the assignment, reaching and sustaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at a la mode, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will regularly need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined 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 assignment.

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 a la mode you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

a la mode holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to 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 societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With a la mode, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.