Honesty and Integrity: Nancy Gomez

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming 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 definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to review an appraisal report, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Nancy Gomez, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - something else Nancy Gomez diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules 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 collect the fee 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 invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would raise the 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 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 rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

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