Stewart Appraisal provides honest and ethical appraisals for La Salle County

Stewart Appraisal maintains the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's main obligation is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are typically restricted to only disclosing their findings to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it through your lender.

Other obligations include numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Here at Stewart Appraisal, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary role is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.


	Stewart Appraisal has worked hard for its reputation for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. Contact us today to learn more.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Stewart Appraisal you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Accepting orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. In other words, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. It should be apparent to anyone that fabricating a property's value to achieve what amounts to a bigger paycheck is unethical! We set ourselves to a higher standard.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice clearly describes 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", or "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 working hard to get you an accurate home or property value.

With Stewart Appraisal, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.