Tim Marston maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

An appraiser's main obligation is to his or her client. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you desire to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the report, reaching and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Tim Marston, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will frequently be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Tim Marston you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible 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 the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies 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 going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Tim Marston, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.