TL Strickland Inc. maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming 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 rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have quite a few obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you normally have to request it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at TL Strickland Inc..

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those 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 be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else TL Strickland Inc. diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. 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 industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the 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 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.

When you engage TL Strickland Inc. we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.