Honesty and Integrity: Jim Pemberton

We consider our our business a profession. The rigors of becoming 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 considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. More often than not, for a typical 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 desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, reaching and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Jim Pemberton, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, 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 at least five years - at Jim Pemberton you can rest assured that we abide by 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. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate 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 societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states a violation in ethics 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Jim Pemberton, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.