Honesty and Integrity: Kristy Niemerg

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become 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 definitely be called a profession rather than a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we must follow strict ethical considerations.

We have a lot of responsibilities as appraisers but our main duty is to our clients. Generally, for a regular 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 want to obtain a copy of an appraisal report, you normally have to get it through your lender. Other obligations also include, numerical accuracy depending on the assignment's nature, reaching and maintaining an appropriate level of competency and education, and of course, the appraiser must behave in a professional manner. Here at Kristy Niemerg, we take these ethical responsibilities very seriously.

Appraisers can often have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, including homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Those third parties normally are defined in scope of the appraisal assignment itself. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, 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 clients and others. For example, appraisers must backup their work files for at least five years - something else Kristy Niemerg diligently adheres to.

We meet or beat the industry standards and guidelines set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we are not able to agree to do an appraisal report and collect payment on the contingency of the loan closing. Another practice that's restricted is doing assignments on percentage fees. That is perhaps the appraisal industries biggest no-no, because it would tend to make appraisers increase the value of homes or properties to increase their fee. We don't do that. Other improper practices may be established 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 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 going above and beyond to objectively determine the home or property value.

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