Kristy Millington maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is generally a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

The appraiser's main obligation is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the nature of the report, reaching and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Kristy Millington, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will regularly need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Kristy Millington you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on orders that contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states a violation in ethics 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Kristy Millington, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, professional service.