Lemmon Appraisal Services maintains the utmost professional ethics

We consider our our job a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Most of the time, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping an appropriate 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 Lemmon Appraisal Services.

Appraisers will frequently be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Lemmon Appraisal Services you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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 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 Lemmon Appraisal Services, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.