Brad Elting & Company maintains the highest professional ethics

Generally, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

For an appraiser the primary responsibility is to their client. Normally, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you want a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Brad Elting & Company, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those 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 backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Brad Elting & Company you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be defined 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," as well as other situations. We 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.

When you request an appraisal from Brad Elting & Company 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.