1st Equity Appraisal Service provides honest and ethical appraisals for Prince William County

Honesty and Integrity: 1st Equity Appraisal Service

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

An appraiser's chief obligation is to their client. Most of the time, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are typically restricted to only disclosing their findings to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender instead of the appraiser.

Other responsibilities include accurate figures appropriate to the scope of the assignment, acquiring and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at 1st Equity Appraisal Service, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.


	1st Equity Appraisal Service has worked hard for its reputation for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more, contact us.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else 1st Equity Appraisal Service diligently adheres to.

1st Equity Appraisal Service holds itself to the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Accepting assignments based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. That means we can't agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. There's an obvious conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value with the reward of getting paid more money!

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice also defines 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", or "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 doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With 1st Equity Appraisal Service, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.