Sandra Kelley maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Most of the time, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the report, attaining and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Sandra Kelley.

Appraisers will frequently need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those 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 whom we share information. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Sandra Kelley you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't 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 probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior 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," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Sandra Kelley, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.