Colony Bank maintains the highest professional ethics

We consider our our business a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we are bound by an ethical code.

As appraisers our primary obligation is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you require to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the nature of the report, reaching and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Colony Bank.

Appraisers will frequently be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. 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.

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 Colony Bank diligently adheres to.

While busy with an appraisal, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can'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 professions most important rule, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the value of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics 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," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Colony Bank, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.