Seth Martin upholds the highest professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days 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 chief responsibility is to their client. Generally, for a standard 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 desire to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Seth Martin, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers may regularly 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 responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Seth Martin diligently adheres to.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. 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 perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the 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 be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Seth Martin, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.