Carley Appraisal provides honest and ethical appraisals for Comal County

Carley Appraisal upholds the highest professional ethics

We consider our job as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's chief obligation is to their client. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has retained to maintain independence. It's important to know that many elements relating to an assignment are to be discussed with the appraiser's client. So, as a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you generally should request it via your lender instead of the appraiser.

Other responsibilities include accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the assignment, attaining and sustaining a certain 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 Carley Appraisal.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Carley Appraisal has worked hard for its track record for performing competent and ethically superior appraisals. Contact us today to learn more.


Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - something else Carley Appraisal diligently adheres to.

We meet or exceed the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments based on contingency fees is not something we can consider. That means we can't agree to do an appraisal report and base our pay upon coming up with a particular value conclusion. There's certainly a conflict of interest if an appraiser can report a larger value with the reward of getting paid more money!

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") clearly states 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to get you an accurate home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from Carley Appraisal, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the honesty and integrity we're known for.