Honesty and Integrity: Myers Real Estate Services

We consider our our job a profession. Requirements to become 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 as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Most of the time, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Myers Real Estate Services.

Appraisers can sometimes have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. 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 standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Myers Real Estate Services you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on orders that contingency fees is never an option. 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 perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional societies 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Myers Real Estate Services we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.