Honesty and Integrity: Bellanti Appraisal Group

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. 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 must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, 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 want a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the nature of the report, acquiring and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Bellanti Appraisal Group.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Bellanti Appraisal Group you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible 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 collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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.

With Bellanti Appraisal Group, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.