Palma-Lazar Appraisal maintains the highest professional ethics

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 certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, 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 want a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, acquiring and maintaining 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 standard operating procedure for us at Palma-Lazar Appraisal.

Appraisers will regularly be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Palma-Lazar Appraisal makes a part of their standard routine.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never 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 probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would raise the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. 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 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 assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you engage Palma-Lazar Appraisal we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.