Honesty and Integrity: Matt Stomprud Appraisals LLC

Appraising is, by and large, a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have quite a few responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. More often than not, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you want a copy of an appraisal report, you should request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and maintaining an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Matt Stomprud Appraisals LLC.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Matt Stomprud Appraisals LLC makes a part of their standard routine.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional societies 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Matt Stomprud Appraisals LLC we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.