For honest and ethical appraisals, rely on Todd Paden

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. More often than not, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Todd Paden.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Todd Paden you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't 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 most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would up the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Todd Paden, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.