Honesty and Integrity: Braungardt Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's main responsibility is to their client. Typically, 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 would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Braungardt Appraisals.

Appraisers may sometimes have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. 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 clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at Braungardt Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to 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 industries biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would inflate the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

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