Honesty and Integrity: Sunshine Appraisals

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the main responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the assignment, acquiring and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Sunshine Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will frequently be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Sunshine Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don't 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 industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would up the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper 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," 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.

As soon as you engage Sunshine 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.