Burnham Real Estate Appraisals upholds the highest professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. More often than not, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. 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 want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Burnham Real Estate Appraisals.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. 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.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Burnham Real Estate Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. 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 rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Burnham Real Estate 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.