Honesty and Integrity: Nordquist Appraisal LLC

We think of our business as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. 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. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to their client. More often than not, in residential practice, 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 would like to review the appraisal document, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, reaching and maintaining an adequate 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 Nordquist Appraisal LLC.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Nordquist Appraisal LLC you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to 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 perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an 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 rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Nordquist Appraisal LLC, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.