Honesty and Integrity: A-Frame Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

The appraiser's main obligation is to their client. Most of the time, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you desire a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the nature of the report, attaining and sustaining an appropriate 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 A-Frame Appraisals.


A-Frame Appraisals has an established reputation for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. Contact us today to learn more.

Appraisers will often be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at A-Frame Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With A-Frame Appraisals, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.