Honesty and Integrity: Diamondback Appraisal & Consulting, Inc.

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have many responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Most of the time, 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 want to obtain a copy of the appraisal document, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Diamondback Appraisal & Consulting, Inc..

Appraisers will often need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Generally the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the assignment.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at Diamondback Appraisal & Consulting, Inc. you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is probably the appraisal industries most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers inflate the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other improper practices may be defined by state law or professional societies that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines 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 follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

When you engage Diamondback Appraisal & Consulting, Inc. we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.