For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Duncan Appraisals

An appraiser's primary obligation is to their client. Normally, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. It's important to know that certain matters pertaining to an assignment are to be shared with the appraiser's client. As a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you generally should get it through your lender instead of the appraiser.

Other responsibilities include accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Duncan Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

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

	Duncan Appraisals has worked hard for its track record for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. Contact us today to learn more.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Duncan Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

While busy with an appraisal, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. That means we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. There's a definite conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a greater value and then get paid more money! This isn't how we operate.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice clearly 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Duncan Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.