Janelle Justen maintains 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. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Generally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the report, reaching and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Janelle Justen.

Appraisers will regularly be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll 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.

There are also ethical duties 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 - something else Janelle Justen diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can'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 perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would inflate the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are working hard to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Janelle Justen, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.