Garza's Appraisal Solutions provides honest and ethical appraisals for Harris County

Garza's Appraisal Solutions upholds the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

An appraiser's chief responsibility is to their client. Most of the time, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. It follows that appraisers are typically restricted to only disclosing information to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it through your lender.

Other responsibilities include numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Here at Garza's Appraisal Solutions, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.


	Garza's Appraisal Solutions has an established reputation for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more, contact us.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Garza's Appraisal Solutions you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. Working on orders based on contingency fees is never an option. That means we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. It should be apparent to anyone that inflating a value to achieve what amounts to a higher paycheck is unethical! We set ourselves to a higher standard.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice explicitly states 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" in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you engage Garza's Appraisal Solutions, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the honesty and integrity we're known for.