Harbor Appraisals, LLC provides honest and ethical appraisals for Saint Louis County

For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Harbor Appraisals, LLC

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

 

We have many responsibilities as appraisers, but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Consequently, appraisers are typically limited to only disclosing their findings to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you normally have to get it via your lender and not the appraiser.

Other obligations include numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Here at Harbor Appraisals, LLC, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Harbor Appraisals, LLC has worked hard for its reputation for completing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more, contact us.


Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Harbor Appraisals, LLC diligently adheres to.

 

We meet or exceed the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders based on 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. There's an obvious conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value and then get paid more money! This isn't how we operate.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice explicitly defines 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to get you an accurate home or property value.

With Harbor Appraisals, LLC, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.