Cornerstone Valuation Group, Inc. upholds the utmost professional ethics

We consider our what we do a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days 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 many obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Generally, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Cornerstone Valuation Group, Inc..

Appraisers may also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including 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 only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Cornerstone Valuation Group, Inc. 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 collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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," in addition to other situations We 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.

When you request an appraisal from Cornerstone Valuation Group, 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.