Honesty and Integrity: Terry Richardson

We consider our what we do a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

An appraiser's primary responsibility is to his or her client. Normally, 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 require to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Terry Richardson.

Appraisers will frequently be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty 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 assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - something else Terry Richardson diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We can'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 collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Terry Richardson, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.