For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Newton & Associates

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

As appraisers our primary responsibility is to their client. More often than not, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and maintaining a respectable 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 Newton & Associates.

Appraisers may frequently have fiduciary responsibilities 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 duty is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Newton & Associates you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

Newton & Associates holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don'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 increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. 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 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," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Newton & Associates, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.