 Honesty and Integrity: Clayton Kennedy Appraisal, LLCAppraising is generally a long term career. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.
An appraiser's main responsibility is to their client.
Generally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has hired in order to maintain independence.
It follows that appraisers are privy to a lot of information, and like an attorney, can only discuss many of these matters with their client. As
a homeowner, if you want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to get it from your lender instead of the appraiser.
Appraisers will regularly be required to consider the interests of third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.
There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - at Clayton Kennedy Appraisal, LLC you can rest assured that we abide by that rule. We meet or exceed the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on assignments where our fee is dependent on our value conclusion is not something we can consider. That means we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. There's an obvious conflict of interest if an appraiser can report an unsubstantiated value with the reward of getting paid more money! Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice explicitly 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value. As soon as you request an appraisal from Clayton Kennedy Appraisal, LLC, we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the business principles we're known for. |
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