Honesty and Integrity: DTB Appraisals, LLC

We consider our our job a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but first and foremost we answer to our clients. Generally, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of privacy to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you want to review the appraisal document, you generally have to obtain it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at DTB Appraisals, LLC.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters 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 at least five years - at DTB Appraisals, LLC you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

When busy with an assignment, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. We never do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don'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 industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers up the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional organizations 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 objectively determine the home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from DTB Appraisals, LLC we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the an ethical approach with appraisals that we're known for.