Honesty and Integrity: Floyd Knows Properties, LLC

We think of our business as a profession. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question these days that real estate appraisal can definitely be considered a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

The appraiser's primary responsibility is to his or her client. More often than not, for a standard residential appraisal, 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 require to review an appraisal report, you should get it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and maintaining 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 Floyd Knows Properties, LLC.

There are some scenarios in which appraisers will have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Normally the third parties are clearly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is restricted to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have rules outside of boundaries of clients and others. For example, appraisers must store their work files for at least five years - something else Floyd Knows Properties, LLC diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and rules set in place for ethics. We won't accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. 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 perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the value of the home would raise the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. Other unethical practices may be established 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," in addition to other situations We follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Floyd Knows Properties, LLC, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.