Honesty and Integrity: Calogeno Principato

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. 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 definitely be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

The appraiser's main responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, for a regular 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 want a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the scope of the report, reaching and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Calogeno Principato.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Calogeno Principato you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We have a responsibility not to do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the value of the home would increase the fee. 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 states unethical behavior 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from Calogeno Principato we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.