Honesty and Integrity: The Moulton Group

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the chief responsibility is to his or her client. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you desire a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is is what we do everyday at The Moulton Group.

Appraisers will often be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited 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 rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at The Moulton Group 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 can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 appraisal fraud since raising the value of the home would increase the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical 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 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you engage The Moulton Group we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.