Mindi Kitten Appraisals maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

For an appraiser the primary obligation is to their client. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the report, acquiring and keeping a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Mindi Kitten Appraisals.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only 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 standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Mindi Kitten Appraisals takes very seriously.

Mindi Kitten Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't 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 probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise 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 organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from Mindi Kitten Appraisals 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.