Montgomery Appraisal Systems maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is generally a long term career. The rigors of becoming 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 unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

An appraiser's chief obligation is to his or her client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you require a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Montgomery Appraisal Systems.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Montgomery Appraisal Systems you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Montgomery Appraisal Systems we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.