JM Appraisal Services provides honest and ethical appraisals for Penobscot County

JM Appraisal Services upholds the highest professional ethics

Generally, appraising is a long term career. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client. More often than not, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has hired in order to maintain independence. Certain matters relating to an assignment are to be shared exclusively with the appraiser's client. As a homeowner, if you would like a copy of the appraisal document, you generally should obtain it via your lender.

Other obligations include accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the report, reaching and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Here at JM Appraisal Services, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will frequently be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary role is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

JM Appraisal Services has an established track record for completing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more, contact us.


Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else JM Appraisal Services diligently adheres to.

We require the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing orders based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. That means we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Anyone should be able to see that inflating a value to achieve a bigger paycheck is unethical! We set ourselves to a higher standard.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") also states 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With JM Appraisal Services, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.