For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Ward & Company

We consider our our business a profession. 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 certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Most of the time, for a standard 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 desire to review an appraisal report, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and keeping 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 Ward & Company.

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

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Ward & Company you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't 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 perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Ward & Company, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.