Gil Appraisals 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. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Generally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Gil Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Gil Appraisals you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper 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 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 be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Gil Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.