Philip Goff upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

The appraiser's chief responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like a copy of an appraisal report, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the report, acquiring and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Philip Goff, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers may regularly 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 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 assignment.

Appraisers also have duties 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 Philip Goff you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from Philip Goff 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.