Bales Appraisals provides honest and ethical appraisals for Tulsa County

Honesty and Integrity: Bales Appraisals

We consider what we do as a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers, but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has retained to maintain independence. It's important to know that many details pertaining to an assignment are to be discussed with the appraiser's client. As a homeowner, if you want a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to obtain it via your lender and not the appraiser.

Other responsibilities include numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, reaching and keeping an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Here at Bales Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers may regularly have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.


	Bales Appraisals has an established track record for producing competent and ethically superior appraisals. Contact us today to learn more.

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 Bales Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Doing assignments based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. In other words, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Anyone should be able to see that inflating a value to achieve essentially a higher paycheck is unethical! We just don't do it.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") also 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" in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Bales Appraisals, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the honesty and integrity we're known for.