Honesty and Integrity: Daniel Todd Appraisal Services, LLC

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have quite a few obligations as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Generally, 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 desire to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you should request it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and keeping a respectable level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Daniel Todd Appraisal Services, LLC.

Appraisers will often be required to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll 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 keep their work files for at least five years - something else Daniel Todd Appraisal Services, LLC diligently adheres to.

Daniel Todd Appraisal Services, LLC holds itself to the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is not something we can consider That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the estimate of the home would up the fee. We don't do that. Other improper 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 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 Daniel Todd Appraisal Services, LLC, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.