Honesty and Integrity: Jay Crawford

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the main responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you should request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the nature of the report, attaining and keeping a respectable 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 Jay Crawford.

Appraisers may sometimes have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, 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 at least five years - at Jay Crawford you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don'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 biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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 assured we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Jay Crawford 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.