For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Continental Appraisals, Inc.

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 unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the report, attaining and maintaining an adequate 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 Continental Appraisals, Inc..

Appraisers may regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in 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.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Continental Appraisals, Inc. you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would up the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Continental Appraisals, Inc., you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.