Honesty and Integrity: Linda McComas

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our primary responsibility is to their client. Typically, 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 require to review the appraisal document, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Linda McComas.

Appraisers may sometimes have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Linda McComas you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also 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," "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 objectively determine the home or property value.

With Linda McComas, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.