Honesty and Integrity: Sutton Appraisal Service

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become 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 obligations as appraisers but our chief 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 would like a copy of an appraisal report, you should obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Sutton Appraisal Service.

Appraisers may often have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed 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 written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Sutton Appraisal Service you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. 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. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Sutton Appraisal Service, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.