For honest and ethical appraisals, rely on Galaxy Appraisals

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. 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 certainly be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

As appraisers our main obligation is to their client. Generally, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you generally have to obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the nature of the report, acquiring and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Galaxy Appraisals.

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters 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 a minimum of five years - at Galaxy Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less 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 get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would up the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 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 Galaxy Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.