Michael Mollema upholds the utmost professional ethics

We think of our business 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 unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Normally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the report, reaching and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Michael Mollema, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - something else Michael Mollema makes a part of their standard routine.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics 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," "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 doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Michael Mollema, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.