Spokane Appraisal LLC upholds the utmost professional ethics

We think of our business as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Normally, 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 desire to review the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Spokane Appraisal LLC.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

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 - at Spokane Appraisal LLC you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Working on orders 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. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Spokane Appraisal LLC we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.