For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Vickers Appraisals, LLC

Typically, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. 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 have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our primary responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you require a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Vickers Appraisals, LLC.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in 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 assignment.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Vickers Appraisals, LLC you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would raise the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 at ease knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Vickers Appraisals, LLC 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.