Heart of Texas Appraisers, PLLC upholds the utmost 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 definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have many 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 have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the nature of the report, reaching and sustaining an appropriate 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 Heart of Texas Appraisers, PLLC.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll 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.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Heart of Texas Appraisers, PLLC you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

Heart of Texas Appraisers, PLLC holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't 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 perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states a violation in ethics 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," 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 objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Heart of Texas Appraisers, PLLC we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.