Joseph J. Marino upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Typically, for a standard residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you generally have to request it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at Joseph J. Marino.

Appraisers may also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is limited to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - something else Joseph J. Marino diligently adheres to.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

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

With Joseph J. Marino, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.