Honesty and Integrity: Milliken Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. 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 certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our primary responsibility is to their client. More often than not, for a standard residential appraisal, 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 desire a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Milliken Appraisals.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Milliken Appraisals takes very seriously.

Milliken Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the 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 at ease knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

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