Honesty and Integrity: Thomas Shelby

We consider our our business a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's primary responsibility is to his or her client. More often than not, 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 would like a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Thomas Shelby, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Thomas Shelby you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Working on assignments that 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. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would up the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies 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 working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Thomas Shelby 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.