Livingston Appraisals, LLC upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the chief obligation is to their client. More often than not, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Livingston Appraisals, LLC, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

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 responsibility is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Livingston Appraisals, LLC you can rest assured that we adhere to 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 assignments 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. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional societies 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 going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Livingston Appraisals, LLC we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.