Westview Appraisal Services maintains the highest professional ethics

We consider our what we do a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why 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 must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and sustaining 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 Westview Appraisal Services.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted 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 duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Westview Appraisal Services you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

When working on an assignment, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. 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 professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up 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 organizations 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 be assured we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Westview Appraisal Services, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.