Honesty and Integrity: White & Associates

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. 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 definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. More often than not, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the report, attaining and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at White & Associates, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else White & Associates diligently adheres to.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. 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 probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would up the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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.

With White & Associates, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.