Southwest Georgia Farm Credit maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is typically a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more 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. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

The appraiser's primary responsibility is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and sustaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Southwest Georgia Farm Credit.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. 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 job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Southwest Georgia Farm Credit you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible 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 don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. 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 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Southwest Georgia Farm Credit we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.