Honesty and Integrity: Crane Property Services

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more 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 as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the main responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you should request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the report, acquiring and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Crane Property Services, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

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 - at Crane Property Services you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states a violation in ethics 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

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