Honesty and Integrity: Paul Beasley

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age 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 great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require to review the appraisal document, you normally have to request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Paul Beasley, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

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

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 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 organizations that the 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Paul Beasley 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.