Wendy Johnston upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is generally a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to his or her client. Generally, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and sustaining a respectable 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 Wendy Johnston.

Appraisers will frequently be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

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

Wendy Johnston holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can'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 perhaps 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 don't do that. Other unprofessional 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 at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Wendy Johnston, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.