Maine Appraiser maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

An appraiser's main obligation is to their client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, 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 to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the nature of the report, reaching and keeping a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Maine Appraiser.

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

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Maine Appraiser makes a part of their standard routine.

Maine Appraiser holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would increase the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Maine Appraiser, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.