Honesty and Integrity: Inlet Appraisal

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers, but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Subsequently, appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, plus many rules and regulations controlling with whom we share information. So, as a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you generally should obtain it via your lender.

Other responsibilities include numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Maintaining high ethics is what we do every day at Inlet Appraisal .

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary role is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

	Inlet Appraisal has worked hard for its reputation for providing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more, contact us.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Inlet Appraisal you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Doing orders based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. There's an obvious conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a larger value with the reward of getting paid more money! This isn't how we operate.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") clearly defines unethical behavior 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Inlet Appraisal , we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the high ethical standards we're known for.