Alamo Appraisal Group upholds the utmost professional ethics

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 in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Most of the time, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you should request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the report, attaining and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Alamo Appraisal Group.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in 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 things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Alamo Appraisal Group makes a part of their standard routine.

Alamo Appraisal Group holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. 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 get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Alamo Appraisal Group, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.