For honest and ethical appraisals, count on Donica Appraisals

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

The appraiser's primary responsibility is to his or her client. Normally, in residential practice, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you require to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and sustaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Donica Appraisals, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have standards outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - at Donica Appraisals you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

We only perform to the highest ethical standards possible. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We can't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior 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," as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

With Donica Appraisals, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, professional service.