Honesty and Integrity: James W Valentine

Appraising is generally 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 in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you desire a copy of an appraisal report, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at James W Valentine.

Appraisers may sometimes have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at James W Valentine you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

James W Valentine holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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 rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With James W Valentine, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.