On Appraiser Ethics

Residential Appraisal is a profession, and at Colorado Appraisals appraisers are professionals. In the field of professional appraisals, as with many other professions we have ethical standards and we abide by them.

Our primary responsibility is to our clients.  Commonly with residential appraisals our client is the lender who orders the appraisal to evaluate whether the mortgage loan can or should be done.  Appraisers have certain duties involving confidentiality to all of their clients.  For example, if you are a homeowner and you want a copy of the appraisal you normally are required to request it through your lender. 

We also abide to numerical accuracy (based on the parameters of the appraisal assignment), we maintain competency and current education - and we conduct ourselves as professionals.

Colorado Appraisals takes all of these ethical responsibilities very seriously - we adhere to them always.

We also have third-party obligations to people such as homeowners (buyers, sellers or both), or others.  The third parties are commonly spelled out in the appraisal assignment we receive.  Our fiduciary duty is limited to the third party that we as appraisers are aware of, based on the scope of the work or other specific details given in writing in the assignment.

Another ethical rule or standard is that appraisers are required to maintain all work files for a minimum of five years.

At Colorado Appraisals we perform at the highest ethical standards in the industry.  We do not do appraisal assignments on contingency fees - that is, we will not agree to do an appraisal and then only receive payment if the loan closes.  We also will not carry out any appraisal assignment on a percentage fee.  (That may be one of the appraisal profession's biggest "no-nos", since it would make it attractive for the appraiser to inflate the value of real estate properties to increase the amount of payment.)

There are unethical practices that are defined by state or national laws and even professional societies that we belong to - again, we abide by them all.

The USPAP (Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice) defines the acceptance of an assignment based 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" and other similar concepts as unethical.  This is commonly known as "value pressure" to the appraiser and should never be tolerated - and we don't.  You can always be assured that we work objectively to determine value of any property.

With Colorado Appraisals, you can always know that you are working with 100% ethical and professional service.