Honesty and Integrity: K&R Appraisal

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the primary obligation is to his or her client. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you require a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate sums appropriate to the parameters of the report, acquiring and sustaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at K&R Appraisal, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at K&R Appraisal you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We demand the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite appraisal fraud since increasing the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states a violation in ethics 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," "the amount of a value opinion," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are working hard to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from K&R Appraisal we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.