Terra Nova Appraisals Inc. upholds the utmost professional ethics

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the primary responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you require to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it from 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 of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Terra Nova Appraisals Inc..

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Terra Nova Appraisals Inc. you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't 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 professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would raise the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Terra Nova Appraisals Inc., you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.