For honest and ethical appraisals, rely on Zachary Maditz

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 called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and keeping a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Zachary Maditz, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty 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 keep their work files for at least five years - at Zachary Maditz you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

While working on an order, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

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