Honesty and Integrity: RDK Appraisals

We think of what we do as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we are bound by ethical considerations.

We have many obligations as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Normally, for a typical residential appraisal, 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 generally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at RDK Appraisals.

Appraisers may frequently have fiduciary obligations to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are listed in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is only to those 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 standards outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at RDK Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With RDK Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.