Lemmon Appraisal Services maintains the highest professional ethics

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our main responsibility is to their client. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Lemmon Appraisal Services, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of 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 responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

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 at least five years - at Lemmon Appraisal Services you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

While busy with an order, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing orders on 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. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Lemmon Appraisal Services 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.