Honesty and Integrity: BJC Appraisal Service

Generally, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, for a regular 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 want a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at BJC Appraisal Service.

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 parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else BJC Appraisal Service takes very seriously.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. 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 states 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 working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With BJC Appraisal Service, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.