Travis Klundt upholds the utmost professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. The rigors of becoming a licensed appraiser have become more difficult than ever in the past. That's why it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can unquestionably be called a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our primary duty is to our clients. Most of the time, for a normal residential appraisal, the lender places the order to the appraiser, becoming the appraiser's client. Appraisers are required to only disclosing information to their clients, and as a homeowner, if you would like to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to obtain it from your lender. Other responsibilities also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, attaining and maintaining a particular level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Maintaining high ethics is standard operating procedure for us at Travis Klundt.

Appraisers will regularly be obligated to consider the interests of third parties, including homeowners, sellers and buyers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary responsibility is only to those third parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the order.

Appraisers also have duties outside of boundaries of with whom we share information For example, appraisers must be able to produce their work files for at least five years - something else Travis Klundt diligently adheres to.

We require the highest ethical standards possible from ourselves. Working on assignments that contingency fees is not something we can consider 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 biggest no-no, because it would invite fraudulent practices since raising the value of the home would inflate the fee. We set ourselves to a higher standard. 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 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 diligently 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.

With Travis Klundt, you won't have any doubts that you're getting 100 percent ethical, professional service.