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Uzelac Appraisal Group provides honest and ethical appraisals for Porter County

Honesty and Integrity: Uzelac Appraisal Group

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of obligations as appraisers, but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Typically, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Subsequently, appraisers are typically restricted to only disclosing their findings to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you would like to review an appraisal report, you normally should request it from your lender and not the appraiser.

Other responsibilities include accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the assignment, acquiring and keeping 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 standard operating procedure for us at Uzelac Appraisal Group.

Appraisers will sometimes be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Uzelac Appraisal Group has worked hard for its track record for performing appraisals with the highest of ethics. Contact us today to learn more.


There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at Uzelac Appraisal Group you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

Uzelac Appraisal Group holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. In other words, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Anyone should be able to see that fabricating a home's value to achieve a bigger paycheck is unethical! We set ourselves to a higher standard.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice also 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" as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you engage Uzelac Appraisal Group, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you deserve along with the business principles we're known for.