Appraisal Articles

It is time for trick or treat. Here’s another Halloween horror story for you.

We did an appraisal in town, not rural by any means, but a 13 year old home on 2.06 acres. The loan officer, then the underwriter contacted us about the report and wanted more comps added. Mind you we had 4 on it already, 10, 13, 21 years old, and a new one for proximity.

The underwriter insisted that their “AVM” came back and said that they could not accept the report without two additional comps from the new s/d. We informed them that this was not within the original Scope of Work, but for argument’s sake we would comply.

The underwriter then called us back to let us know that “perhaps we did not understand,” she wanted us to take out comps 1-3 and leave in only the new comps. We let her know that was not ethical, it would make the report misleading, and not to mention was against USPAP. So she told us in no uncertain terms if we did not comply, that she would personally have us removed from their “approved appraiser” list.

Can you believe it?

So we turned them into to the NCCOB for coercion.

The good news, or treat, is that the underwriter in question was “let go”. Hopefully it was due to our insistence that she was not qualified to be reviewing appraisals.

The only trick is that the bank has recently declared bankruptcy, surrendered their NC license, and would not be held liable for fines or any disciplinary action by the NCCOB. It is too bad they no longer have any loan officers here in NC; we were really looking forward to the NCCOB letting them know we don’t put up with that here in NC.

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