Leigh F. Edwards Appraisals maintains the highest professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our primary obligation is to his or her client. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Leigh F. Edwards Appraisals.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of 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 things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Leigh F. Edwards Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

Leigh F. Edwards Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to 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 perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase 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 societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Leigh F. Edwards Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.