Honesty and Integrity: DCO Appraisal Services, Inc

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. That's why it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be considered a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a great deal of obligations as appraisers but above everything we answer to our clients. Typically, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have rules and regulations they must follow, including keeping many matters private for their clients a homeowner, if you desire a copy of an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate calculations appropriate to the scope of the report, acquiring and keeping an adequate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is just normal course of business for us at DCO Appraisal Services, Inc.

Appraisers will regularly need to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Typically the third parties are specifically defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only 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 rules outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must backup their work files for a minimum of five years - at DCO Appraisal Services, Inc you can rest assured that we abide by that rule.

DCO Appraisal Services, Inc 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 are not able to 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 probably the appraisal professions biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers increase 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 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," as well as other situations. We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With DCO Appraisal Services, Inc, you won't have any doubts that you're receiving 100 percent ethical, honest service.