John Thomas Appraisal Company maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is typically a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have quite a few obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, 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 desire to review an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at John Thomas Appraisal Company.

Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at John Thomas Appraisal Company you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the 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," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With John Thomas Appraisal Company, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.