Marion & Werenski (413) 533-0636 upholds the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult 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 have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our primary responsibility is to his or her client. Normally, for a typical residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Marion & Werenski (413) 533-0636, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Marion & Werenski (413) 533-0636 diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Marion & Werenski (413) 533-0636, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.