Scott Evans maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have quite a few obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Most of the time, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require to review the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Scott Evans, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers may frequently have fiduciary responsibilities to 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 duty is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

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

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less 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 get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Scott Evans, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.