Honesty and Integrity: Piedmont Appraisers Inc.

By and large, 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 these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want a copy of an appraisal report, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the nature of the report, acquiring and maintaining a particular 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 Piedmont Appraisers Inc..

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, 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 third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Piedmont Appraisers Inc. you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

Piedmont Appraisers Inc. holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Piedmont Appraisers Inc., you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.