John Fanning & Associates maintains the utmost professional ethics

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 considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by an ethical code.

The appraiser's chief obligation is to his or her client. Generally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you normally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the assignment, reaching and maintaining an appropriate 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 John Fanning & Associates.

Appraisers will sometimes need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility 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.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at John Fanning & Associates you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. 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. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would up the fee. We don't do that. Other unethical 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 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 be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from John Fanning & Associates we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.