Honesty and Integrity: Neglia Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

For an appraiser the primary responsibility is to their client. More often than not, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you would like a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the assignment, attaining and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Neglia Appraisals .

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

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Neglia Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is never an option. 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 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," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Neglia Appraisals 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.