Karner Appraisals, LLC provides honest and ethical appraisals for Butler County

Karner Appraisals, LLC maintains the highest professional ethics

Appraising is a profession, and appraisers are professionals. Requirements to become a licensed appraiser have increased more than ever in the past. So it goes without question in this day and age that real estate appraisal can definitely be dubbed a profession as opposed to a trade. In our field, as with any profession, we have a strict ethical code.

The appraiser's main obligation is to their client. Generally, for a standard residential appraisal, the appraiser's client is the lender ordering the appraisal, and often the appraisal is ordered by a third party the lender has hired in order to maintain independence. Subsequently, appraisers are typically limited to only disclosing their findings to their clients, so as a homeowner, if you would like to review an appraisal report, you normally have to get it from your lender and not the appraiser.

Other obligations include numerical accuracy depending on the assignment parameters, acquiring and maintaining a certain level of competency and education, and naturally, the appraiser must bear a professional demeanor. Here at Karner Appraisals, LLC, we take these ethical responsibilities very to heart.

Appraisers may frequently have fiduciary responsibilities to third parties, such as homeowners, buyers and sellers, or others. Typically the third parties are explicitly defined in the appraisal report. An appraiser's fiduciary duty is only to those parties who the appraiser is aware of, based on the scope of work or other written parameters of the assignment.

Karner Appraisals, LLC has worked hard for its reputation for providing appraisals with the highest of ethics. Contact us today to learn more.


There are also ethical duties that have nothing to do with clients and others. For example, appraisers must keep their work files for a minimum of five years - at Karner Appraisals, LLC you can rest assured that we adhere to that rule.

We meet or exceed the industry standards and mandates set in place for professional behavior. We can't accept anything less from ourselves. Doing orders based on contingency fees is never an option. That is, we can't agree to do an appraisal report and collect the fee only if the loan closes. It should be obvious that fabricating a home's value to achieve a higher fee is unethical! We just don't do it.

Finally, the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (or simply "USPAP") clearly 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", or "the amount of a value opinion" as well as other situations. We diligently follow these rules to the letter which means you can be confident we are going above and beyond to provide an unbiased determination of the home or property value.

With Karner Appraisals, LLC, you can be assured of 100 percent ethical, honest service.