Honesty and Integrity: Ronald Wong

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever before. So it goes without question in this day and age 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.

The appraiser's chief obligation is to their client. Typically, 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 require to review an appraisal report, you generally have to get it from your lender. Other obligations also include, accurate figures appropriate to the nature of the assignment, reaching 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 standard operating procedure for us at Ronald Wong.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary obligations to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are spelled out in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is restricted to those parties who the appraiser knows, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

There are also ethical rules that have nothing to do with whom we share information. For example, appraisers must store their work files for a minimum of five years - at Ronald Wong you can rest assured that we stick to that rule.

Ronald Wong holds itself to the industry standards and guidelines set in place for ethics. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Working on orders that contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and get paid only if the loan closes. We don't do assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal professions biggest taboo, 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 established by state law or professional societies to which an appraiser belongs.

The Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) also defines a violation in ethics 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 diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be at ease knowing we are doing everything we can to objectively determine the home or property value.

When you request an appraisal from Ronald Wong we'll make sure you're getting the professional service you expect along with the ethical handling of appraisals that we're known for.