Veronica Whitman provides honest and ethical appraisals for Maricopa County

Honesty and Integrity: Veronica Whitman

Typically, appraising is a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client. Normally, for a standard 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 hired in order to maintain independence. Thereon, appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, plus many rules and regulations to which we must adhere. So, as a homeowner, if you desire to review an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it from your lender instead of the appraiser.

Other responsibilities include numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, acquiring and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Veronica Whitman, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will frequently be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.


	Veronica Whitman has an established reputation for providing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more, contact us.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - at Veronica Whitman you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or exceed the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is not something we can consider. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. There's certainly a conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a larger value and then get paid more money!

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") clearly describes 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to get you an accurate home or property value.

With Veronica Whitman, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.