Honesty and Integrity: Dammaschke Appraisals

We consider our our job a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can certainly be dubbed a profession rather than a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

An appraiser's chief obligation is to their client. Most of the time, in residential practice, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal. Appraisers have certain duties of confidentiality to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to review an appraisal report, you should request it through your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate sums appropriate to the scope of the report, attaining and sustaining an adequate level of competency and education, and the appraiser must conduct him or herself as a professional. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is is what we do everyday at Dammaschke Appraisals.

In some cases appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility 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 with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Dammaschke Appraisals takes very seriously.

Dammaschke Appraisals holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing assignments on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. Another practice that's restricted is doing 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 increase the their paycheck. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also states 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 rest easy knowing we are going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you order an appraisal from Dammaschke Appraisals 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.