Gardner & Associates upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

As appraisers our main obligation is to his or her client. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Certain matters pertaining to an assignment can only be discussed with an appraiser's client. As a a homeowner, if you require 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 sustaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Gardner & Associates.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Gardner & Associates diligently adheres to.

Gardner & Associates holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on 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 perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would raise the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," in addition to other situations We diligently 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 Gardner & Associates, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.