Lumina Appraisal Co maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Normally, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Lumina Appraisal Co, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Lumina Appraisal Co takes very seriously.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing orders 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 don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations 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 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.

With Lumina Appraisal Co, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.