Brian Hartzog Appraisals maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more 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 must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief obligation is to his or her client. More often than not, for a regular 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 would like a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the report, acquiring and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Brian Hartzog Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. 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 job.

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 Brian Hartzog Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Brian Hartzog Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.