Hugh J. Bubb Appraisal Service 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 in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief obligation is to their client. Normally, for a typical 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 would like a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Hugh J. Bubb Appraisal Service.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. 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 written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Hugh J. Bubb Appraisal Service you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

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

When you engage Hugh J. Bubb Appraisal Service 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.