Honesty and Integrity: Northpointe Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

An appraiser's chief obligation is to their client. More often than not, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to review an appraisal report, you should request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Northpointe Appraisals.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have standards 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 Northpointe Appraisals makes a part of their standard routine.

Northpointe Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Northpointe Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.