a la mode upholds the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become 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 considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to his or her client. Most of the time, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at a la mode, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will often be obligated 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 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 order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at a la mode you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

When busy with an appraisal, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't 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 perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would up the their paycheck. We don't do that. 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 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With a la mode, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.