For honest and ethical appraisals, count on John Pratt

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 unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our main responsibility is to his or her 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 confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require to review the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the scope of the report, acquiring and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at John Pratt, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary obligations 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 duty is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - at John Pratt you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

John Pratt holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With John Pratt, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.