Honesty and Integrity: Alan Partch

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the chief obligation is to their client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Alan Partch.

Appraisers will sometimes be required to consider the interests of 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 duty is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Alan Partch you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to 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 probably the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established 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," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Alan Partch, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.