Charlestown Mercant provides honest and ethical appraisals for Dorchester County

Honesty and Integrity: Charlestown Mercant

Appraising is typically a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have many obligations as appraisers, but our chief duty is to our clients. Normally, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Consequently, 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 desire to review an appraisal report, you generally should request it from your lender.

Other responsibilities include numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Maintaining high ethics is what we do every day at Charlestown Mercant.

Appraisers will often be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary role is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.


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

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Charlestown Mercant takes very seriously.

When busy with an appraisal, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Accepting orders based on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Anyone should be able to see that fabricating a home's value to achieve a bigger paycheck is unethical! We set ourselves to a higher standard.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice also defines unethical behavior 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" as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to get you an accurate home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from Charlestown Mercant, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the honesty and integrity we're known for.