For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Mountain High Appraisal Services

Appraising is typically a long term career. 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 called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

For an appraiser the main responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, 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 normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and maintaining an appropriate 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 Mountain High Appraisal Services.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only 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 rules 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 Mountain High Appraisal Services takes very seriously.

Mountain High Appraisal Services holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Mountain High Appraisal Services we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.