Colin Welch upholds the highest professional ethics

Appraising is generally a long term career. The rigors of becoming 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 dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have many obligations as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. More often than not, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you desire a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the report, acquiring and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Colin Welch, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. 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 job.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Colin Welch you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We don't 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 most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Colin Welch we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.