Turpin & Associates upholds the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become 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 definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our primary obligation is to his or her client. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, 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 want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, acquiring and sustaining a certain level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Turpin & Associates.

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Turpin & Associates you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would up the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. 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 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Turpin & Associates, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.