Jose Gandia maintains the highest professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. 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 unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, 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 to review the appraisal document, you should request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Jose Gandia, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will frequently be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as 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 written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Jose Gandia you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

When busy with an assignment, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would increase the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Jose Gandia we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.