Beacon Appraisal Consultants, Inc. 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. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Most of the time, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the nature of the report, attaining and keeping a certain 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 Beacon Appraisal Consultants, Inc..

Appraisers may sometimes have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Beacon Appraisal Consultants, Inc. takes very seriously.

When working on an appraisal, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on assignments that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. 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," as well as other situations. We 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 Beacon Appraisal Consultants, Inc., you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.