Justin Shimp upholds the utmost professional ethics

By and large, appraising a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

We have many obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Justin Shimp.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Justin Shimp you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would up the fee. We don't do that. 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 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Justin Shimp we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.