Honesty and Integrity: Lusk Appraisal Company

We think of what we do as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have many obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Normally, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Lusk Appraisal Company.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of 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 things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Lusk Appraisal Company you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

Lusk Appraisal Company holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would increase the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Lusk Appraisal Company, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.