Honesty and Integrity: Newton and Associates

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

The appraiser's main obligation is to their client. More often than not, for a typical residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Newton and Associates, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Newton and Associates diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't 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 probably the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would up the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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," as well as other situations. We diligently 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 Newton and Associates, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.