Jeff Stephens maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our chief obligation is to his or her client. Generally, for a regular 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 an appraisal report, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Jeff Stephens.

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - something else Jeff Stephens takes very seriously.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise 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 that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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," "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 going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Jeff Stephens, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.