Honesty and Integrity: Clayton Home Appraisals, inc.

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is 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 rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Clayton Home Appraisals, inc..

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

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 Clayton Home Appraisals, inc. you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders 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. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would up the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other improper 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 the acceptance 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 going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Clayton Home Appraisals, inc. we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.