Honesty and Integrity: Peak Appraisals, Inc.

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. More often than not, in residential practice, 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 require a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining a particular 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 Peak Appraisals, Inc..

Peak Appraisals, Inc. provides honest and ethical appraisals for Oakland County

Peak Appraisals, Inc. has an established reputation for completing appraisals with the highest of ethics. Contact us today to learn more.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have rules 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 Peak Appraisals, Inc. takes very seriously.

Peak Appraisals, Inc. holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. 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 perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Peak Appraisals, Inc. we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.