Honesty and Integrity: Doug Avery

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have many obligations as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Normally, for a typical residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Doug Avery.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Doug Avery takes very seriously.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't 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 probably the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the value of the home would up the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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 rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Doug Avery, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.