Karl Dietrich upholds the highest professional ethics

We think of our business as a profession. 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 called a profession as opposed to a trade. As with any profession we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our chief duty is to our clients. Typically, for a normal 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 desire to review an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it through your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, reaching and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics and client confidentiality is standard operating procedure for us at Karl Dietrich.

Appraisers can also have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, both sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary roll is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other things in the framework of the order.

There are also ethical standards that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - something else Karl Dietrich diligently adheres to.

Karl Dietrich holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We refuse to accept anything less from ourselves. We don't do assignments on contingency fees. That is, we don't agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions most important rule, because it would tend to make appraisers raise the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other unethical practices may be defined by state law or professional organizations that the appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics 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 rest easy knowing we are doing everything we can to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

As soon as you request an appraisal from Karl Dietrich we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.