J. Hale Appraisals maintains the highest professional ethics

We think of our job as a profession. Requirements to become 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 dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's chief responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the nature of the report, reaching and sustaining a certain 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 J. Hale Appraisals.

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

Appraisers also have rules 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 J. Hale Appraisals makes a part of their standard routine.

J. Hale Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would increase the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. 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 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 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.

As soon as you request an appraisal from J. Hale Appraisals we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.