Honesty and Integrity: RB Valuation Services

We consider our our business a profession. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

As appraisers our chief responsibility is to his or her client. Normally, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers are privy to a lot of data, and like an attorney can only discuss many matters with their client. As a homeowner, if you require to review an appraisal report, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the scope of the assignment, attaining and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at RB Valuation Services, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Normally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at RB Valuation Services you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We demand the highest professional integrity possible from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest taboo, 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 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 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from RB Valuation Services we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.