Honesty and Integrity: Heather Balthazar

Appraising is typically a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

For an appraiser the main obligation is to their client. Normally, for a typical residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and maintaining a particular 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 Heather Balthazar.

Appraisers will regularly be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Heather Balthazar you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

Heather Balthazar holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don'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 biggest taboo, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior 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 rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Heather Balthazar, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.