Thomas & Associates, LLC maintains the utmost professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly 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 our main duty is to our clients. Generally, in residential practice, 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 require a copy of the appraisal document, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the scope of the report, acquiring and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Thomas & Associates, LLC.

Appraisers may frequently have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Thomas & Associates, LLC diligently adheres to.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical 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 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 doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Thomas & Associates, 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.