Honesty and Integrity: Joanne Fritz Appraisals

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 in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, 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 desire to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Joanne Fritz Appraisals.

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

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Joanne Fritz Appraisals diligently adheres to.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the value of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical 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 a violation in ethics as accepting 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 assured we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Joanne Fritz Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.