 Honesty and Integrity: Matthew MidkiffWe think of our job as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.
We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers, but above everything we answer to our clients.
Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client.
Thereon, appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, plus strict rules and regulations controlling with whom we share information. So, as
a homeowner, if you desire a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it from your lender instead of the appraiser.
Appraisers can also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary role is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.
There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at Matthew Midkiff you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. Matthew Midkiff holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Accepting orders based on contingency fees is never an option. That means we can't agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. There's certainly a conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a greater value and then get paid more money! This isn't how we operate. Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") clearly states 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", or "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 doing everything we can to get you an accurate home or property value. With Matthew Midkiff, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service. |
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