For honest and ethical appraisals, rely on Helmer Appraisal

An appraiser's chief obligation is to their client. Most of the time, for a typical residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has retained to maintain independence. It follows that appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney, can only discuss many of these matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you want a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it through your lender.

Other responsibilities include accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, reaching and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is what we do every day at Helmer Appraisal.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

	Helmer Appraisal has worked hard for its track record for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. Contact us today to learn more.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Helmer Appraisal takes very seriously.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. There's an obvious conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value and then get paid more money! We set ourselves to a higher standard.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice explicitly describes a violation in ethics 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We diligently 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.

As soon as you engage Helmer Appraisal, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the business principles we're known for.