Honesty and Integrity: Realty Valuation Services Inc.

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be called 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 our chief duty is to our clients. Normally, for a typical residential appraisal, 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 would like to review an appraisal report, you generally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Realty Valuation Services Inc..

Appraisers may often have fiduciary responsibilities 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 only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Realty Valuation Services Inc. diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and mandates set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can'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 probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be established by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states unethical behavior as the acceptance 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 confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you engage Realty Valuation Services Inc. 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.