For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Susan Fretz Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, for a normal 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 want a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Susan Fretz Appraisals.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Susan Fretz Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Doing assignments on 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 probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," "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 doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Susan Fretz Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.