Honesty and Integrity: CLARK APPRAISAL LLC

Generally, appraising a long term career. 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 unquestionably be considered a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

For an appraiser the chief obligation is to his or her client. Typically, for a regular residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to review the appraisal document, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the parameters of the report, reaching and maintaining a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at CLARK APPRAISAL LLC.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at CLARK APPRAISAL LLC you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

When creating reports, we follow the highest ethical standards possible. 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. We can't do 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 fee. We don't do that. Other unprofessional 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be assured we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With CLARK APPRAISAL LLC, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, honest service.