For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Paul Moriconi

We think of our business as 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 these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our primary obligation is to his or her client. More often than not, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Paul Moriconi.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Paul Moriconi you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

Paul Moriconi holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would increase the fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an 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 order an appraisal from Paul Moriconi we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.