Zim Appraisals provides honest and ethical appraisals for Carroll County

Zim Appraisals upholds the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, 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, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has brought in to maintain independence. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney, can only discuss many of these matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you generally have to request it via your lender.

Other responsibilities include numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Here at Zim Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will regularly be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary role is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.


	Zim Appraisals has worked hard for its track record for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. Contact us today to learn more.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Zim Appraisals you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Accepting orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. In other words, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. There's a definite conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value and then get paid more money! This isn't how we operate.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice clearly describes 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Zim Appraisals, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the honesty and integrity we're known for.