Appraising New Mexico upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. 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 certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have quite a few obligations as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Generally, in residential practice, 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 would like to review the appraisal document, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Appraising New Mexico.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Appraising New Mexico you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Appraising New Mexico, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.