Virginia requires an appraiser to be state licensed or certified in order to provide appraisals to federally regulated lenders. Appraisers have fulfilled rigorous educational and experience requirements and must adhere to strict standards and a code of professional ethics.

An appraiser's primary responsibility is to his or her client.  Normally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal to decide whether to make the mortgage loan.  Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients -- as a homeowner, if you want a copy of an appraisal report; you normally have to request it through your lender.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others.  Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible.  We don't do assignments on contingency fees.  That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes.  We don't do assignments on percentage fees.  Other, unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines as unethical 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," and other things.  This means you can be assured we are working to objectively determine the home or property value.
You can be assured that we provide ethical and professional service.