For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Atlas Appraisal, LLC

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Most of the time, for a normal residential appraisal, 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 a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at Atlas Appraisal, LLC.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility 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 duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - something else Atlas Appraisal, LLC takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that 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. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior as accepting 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 confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Atlas Appraisal, LLC, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.