Moab Appraisal Inc. maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called 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 responsibilities as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Most of the time, for a typical residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the assignment, reaching and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Moab Appraisal Inc., we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers can sometimes have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Moab Appraisal Inc. you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Working on assignments 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 biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Moab Appraisal Inc., you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.