Definitive Valuations provides honest and ethical appraisals for Madison County

Honesty and Integrity: Definitive Valuations

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers, but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. 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 would like to review an appraisal report, you normally should request it from your lender.

Other obligations include numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Definitive Valuations.

Appraisers will regularly need to consider the interests of 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 responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Definitive Valuations has an established reputation for producing appraisals with the highest of ethics. Contact us today to learn more.


There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Definitive Valuations you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. Working on assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion 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 a higher fee is unethical! We just don't do it.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice also describes 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" in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to get you an accurate home or property value.

As soon as you order an appraisal from Definitive Valuations, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the high ethical standards we're known for.