Honesty and Integrity: Bonnie Baughman

We consider our what we do a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So 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 are bound by ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Generally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you desire a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Bonnie Baughman.

Appraisers may sometimes have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Bonnie Baughman diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. 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 a violation in ethics 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 be assured we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Bonnie Baughman we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.