Honesty and Integrity: KP Upstate Appraisal Service, LLC

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Typically, 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 confidentiality for their clients a homeowner, if you would like to review an appraisal report, you should obtain it from your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, attaining and sustaining a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at KP Upstate Appraisal Service, LLC.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the job.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else KP Upstate Appraisal Service, LLC takes very seriously.

KP Upstate Appraisal Service, LLC holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. 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 professions biggest taboo, because it would invite appraisal fraud since raising the estimate of the home would raise the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 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.

With KP Upstate Appraisal Service, LLC, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.