JSR Appraisals upholds the utmost professional ethics

We think of our business as a profession. 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 considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

An appraiser's primary responsibility is to his or her client. Generally, for a standard 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 want to review an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the assignment, reaching and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at JSR Appraisals.

Appraisers can frequently have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those 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 rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at JSR Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. 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 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 at ease knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With JSR Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.