Honesty and Integrity: Lee Wilkes

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

An appraiser's primary obligation is to their client. Typically, for a regular 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 require a copy of the appraisal document, you should obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, accurate figures appropriate to the parameters of the report, attaining and keeping a particular level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics is just normal course of business for us at Lee Wilkes.

Appraisers can sometimes have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary roll 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 job.

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

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don'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 biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since increasing the value of the home would up the their paycheck. We don't do that. Other unprofessional practices may be defined by state law or professional societies 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," in addition to other situations We 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 Lee Wilkes, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.