Turpin & Associates upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Generally, for a typical residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and sustaining 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 standard operating procedure for us at Turpin & Associates.

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Turpin & Associates you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. We have a responsibility not to 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 can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," "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 provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Turpin & Associates, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.