Honesty and Integrity: William Pham

We consider our what we do a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Generally, for a typical 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 would like a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and maintaining a certain 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 William Pham.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at William Pham you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines unethical behavior as the acceptance 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 rest easy knowing we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With William Pham, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.