Penfold & Associates Appraisal Service provides honest and ethical appraisals for Antrim County

For honest and ethical appraisals, trust Penfold & Associates Appraisal Service

Typically, appraising is a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So 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 have a strict ethical code.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Consequently, appraisers are typically limited to only disclosing information to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you would like a copy of an appraisal report, you generally should obtain it via your lender instead of the appraiser.

Other obligations include numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Maintaining high ethics is what we do every day at Penfold & Associates Appraisal Service.

Appraisers may regularly have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.


	Penfold & Associates Appraisal Service has worked hard for its track record for completing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more, contact us.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Penfold & Associates Appraisal Service takes very seriously.

We meet or exceed the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. In other words, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Anyone should be able to see that fabricating a home's value to achieve essentially a bigger fee is unethical! We just don't do it.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") also describes unethical behavior 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to get you an accurate home or property value.

When you engage Penfold & Associates Appraisal Service, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the honesty and integrity we're known for.