Jeffrey L. Crook Appraisals, Inc. 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 in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you would like a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and keeping 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 Jeffrey L. Crook Appraisals, Inc..

Appraisers may often have fiduciary obligations 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 roll is limited 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 standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Jeffrey L. Crook Appraisals, Inc. diligently adheres to.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. 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. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Jeffrey L. Crook Appraisals, Inc., you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.