For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Cape Atlantic Appraisals, LLC

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why 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.

As appraisers our primary responsibility is to their client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the assignment, acquiring and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Cape Atlantic Appraisals, LLC.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - something else Cape Atlantic Appraisals, LLC diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 probably the appraisal professions most important rule, 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 unprofessional practices may be established 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you engage Cape Atlantic Appraisals, LLC we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.