The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a “Final Rule” on March 1, 2000 regarding privacy regulation resulting from the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. In this rule, real estate appraisers were included under the definition of a “financial institution”. Compliance with this rule is required as of July 1, 2001. Thus, as professionals who care about your privacy rights, we wish to clarify our company policy and procedures in this regard, as noted below:
Principles
We consider privacy to be fundamental to our relationship with clients. We are committed to maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and security of client’s personal information. Internal policies have been developed to protect this confidentiality, while allowing clients needs to be served.
We restrict access to personal information to authorized individuals who need to know this information to provide service and products for you. We maintain physical, electronic and procedural safeguards that comply with federal standards to protect your nonpublic personal information. We do not disclose this information about you or any former consumers or customers to anyone, except as permitted by law. The law permits use to share this information with our affiliates.
We are committed to protecting our client’s personal and financial information. This privacy statement addresses what nonpublic personal information we collect, what we do with it, and how we protect it.
What information we collect
We collect and use information we believe is necessary to provide you with our appraisal services. We may collect and maintain several types of personal information needed for this purposes, such as:
- Information we receive from you on applications, letters of engagement, forms found on our website, correspondence, or conversations, including, but not limited to, your name, address, phone number, social security number, date of birth, bank records, salary information, the income and expenses associated with the subject property, the sale price of the subject property, and the details of any financing on the subject property;
- Information about your transactions with us, our affiliates, or others, including, but not limited to, payments history, parties to transactions and other financial information;
- Information we receive from a consumer-reporting agency such as a credit history.
Except as described below, we do not share nonpublic personal information. We will not rent, sell, trade, or otherwise release or disclose any personal information about you. We will not disclose consumer information to any third party for use in telemarketing, direct mail or other marketing purposes.
- We limit the sharing of nonpublic personal information about you with financial or non-financial companies, including companies affiliated with us, and other third parties to the following:
- We may share information when it is necessary or required to process a loan or other financial transaction;
- We may share information when it is necessary, required or permitted by law, such as to protect you against fraud or in response to a subpoena. Necessity may include unrelated third party consultants who need to know such information to assist us in providing professional appraisal services to you and only on a strict confidential basis.
In summary, we respect the fiduciary responsibilities of the appraiser-client relationship as further defined in the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) and abide by these as well as the Code of Ethics and the Standards of Professional Practice of the Appraisal Institute.
What information we may disclose
We may disclose the nonpublic personal information about you described above, primarily to provide you with the appraisal services you seek from us. We do not disclose nonpublic personal information about clients or former clients except as permitted by law.
When we share nonpublic information referred to above, the information is made available for limited purposes and under controlled circumstances. We require third parties to comply with our standards for security and confidentiality. We do not permit use of consumer/customer information for any other purpose nor do we permit third parties to rent, sell, trade or otherwise release or disclose information to any other third party.
Who we share the information with
Unless you tell us not to, we may disclose nonpublic personal information about you to the following types of third parties: (a) Financial service providers such as banks and lending institutions; or (b) non-financial companies.
Opt-Out Option
The appraiser has the right to disclose nonpublic personal information about the consumer to a nonaffiliated third party, subject to compliance with USPAP and any other applicable Federal or State laws. The consumer has a right to “opt-out” of such disclosures. The consumer may exercise this opt-out right simply by contacting us. The consumer may also send written opt-out instructions to Maine Valuation Company. Please feel free to contact us at any time if you have questions about the confidentiality of the information that has been provided to us.