CFB Appraisal provides honest and ethical appraisals for Bexar County

Honesty and Integrity: CFB Appraisal

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. 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 unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client. Normally, in residential practice, the lender (or an agent of the lender) places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are typically restricted to only disclosing information to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it from your lender and not the appraiser.

Other obligations include numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at CFB Appraisal.

Appraisers will frequently be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is limited to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the job.

CFB Appraisal has an established reputation for providing competent and ethically superior appraisals. To learn more, contact us.


Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for at least five years - at CFB Appraisal you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

CFB Appraisal holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is never an option. That means we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. It should be apparent to anyone that fabricating a property's value to achieve a higher fee is unethical! This isn't how we operate.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") also describes 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" as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from CFB Appraisal, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the high ethical standards we're known for.