Cheri McCulley upholds the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Cheri McCulley.

Appraisers will regularly need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Cheri McCulley takes very seriously.

Cheri McCulley holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other improper 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 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Cheri McCulley we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.