Honesty and Integrity: Market Valuation Group, LLC

Appraising is typically a long term career. 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 unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, 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 to review an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Market Valuation Group, LLC.

Appraisers may regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Market Valuation Group, LLC you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

Market Valuation Group, LLC holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Market Valuation Group, LLC we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.