Holt Appraisal Group provides honest and ethical appraisals for Sullivan County

Honesty and Integrity: Holt Appraisal Group

We consider our job as a profession. The rigors of becoming 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 definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many obligations as appraisers, but our main duty is to our clients. Most of the time, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. It follows that appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney, can only discuss many of these matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you want a copy of an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it from your lender and not the appraiser.

Other responsibilities include accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Holt Appraisal Group.

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


	Holt Appraisal Group has an established track record for performing appraisals with the highest of ethics. To learn more, contact us.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Holt Appraisal Group you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Accepting assignments based on contingency fees is never an option. That means we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. It should be obvious that inflating a value to achieve essentially a bigger paycheck is unethical! We just don't do it.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice clearly 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Holt Appraisal Group, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the principles we're known for.