Two AMCs Disciplined in VA

Disciplinary Action Against Two AMCs in Virginia

Disciplinary action against 2 AMCs for late payment & operating without license

You just have to shake your head at what they try to pull off!

At the February 14th Virginia Real Estate Appraisers Board Meeting, Independent Settlement Services and Landmark Network were each disciplined for violations of Virginia AMC Regulations.

Independent Settlement Services was disciplined for not disclosing prior disciplinary action in North Carolina. North Carolina audited them and found only 75 times out of 579 appraisals, they paid appraisers within 30 days as required by North Carolina law. The state of Nebraska also fined Independent Settlement Services for not disclosing the disciplinary action in North Carolina. Virginia then turned around and fined Independent Settlement Services again for not disclosing the disciplinary action in Nebraska. See the complaints below or here. Just type in “Independent Settlement” under license look up and open the complaints tab.

Landmark Network was also disciplined for not disclosing prior disciplinary action in Minnesota. The State of Minnesota disciplined them for operating in Minnesota without a license. See the complaint below or here. Just type in the “Landmark Network” under license look up and open the complaints tab.

Excerpt from Summary of the Informal Fact-Finding Conference

Independent LLC was aware of the requirement but due to cash flow issues they “[got] a little behind” on the payments. (Transcript, p. 14) The average payment was made within forty days. Chezosky stated there were outliers that took longer, but he believed this occurred because some vendors had not submitted tax paperwork in order to be paid.

Although the cash flow issues affected operations across the Board, Chezosky believed they only caused a problem in North Carolina because of the thirty-day deadline. Independent LLC’s major clients paid them on a sixty-day cycle, which made it diffcult to meet the thirty-day deadline. By 2015, the cash flow problems had been resolved, and Independent LLC was able to make all of its payments in North Carolina on time.

Removing the Independent Appraiser from the Industry!

Phil Crawford, Voice of the Appraisal, drops a big bombshell on how AMCs plan to move forward. AMCs plan to hire trainees to remove the independent appraiser from the industry.

This will impact every appraiser in Virginia and throughout the country, but more importantly, the consumer will be harmed! Listen to the show Voice of Appraisal E141: The Dystopian Nightmare!!!

Contact your representatives now, both State and Federal, to put a stop to this. Protect your profession, neighbors and local communities!

Find your representatives, click here and forward this to every appraiser you know!

 

VaCAP Board
Image credit flickr - Anssi Koskinen
VaCAP Board

VaCAP Board

Coalition of individual appraisers working together to unite, promote and protect the collective interests of all appraisal professionals in Virginia; to promote needed changes in laws, rules, regulations, policies and standards affecting all appraisers in Virginia; to observe and report the actions of regulatory, legislative, oversight, and standards-setting entities of the Commonwealth.

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17 Responses

  1. Avatar Laura Burrows says:

    Landmark is full of scummy people, they are horrible to deal with and by far the worst AMC I’ve dealt with. Fired them a long time ago.

    20
    • Avatar Tom C says:

      Laura, I can’t agree with you. There are far worst amcs Coester, Clear Capital, Streetlinks, Valuation Partners, Metro-West, AMCLinks, Nations Valuation, TSI, Dart Appraisal, Corelogic, etc.

      Are you an appraiser? Couldn’t find you listed in the registry!

      10
    • Avatar William D says:

      So Laura, as a non appraiser (you are not on the ASC website) you were able to fire an AMC? That’s magical. Are you the attorney out of MD?  So to make such horrible statements about a company you have never worked with seems a bit odd.  Just a bit curious as to your experience with this AMC as a non appraiser?

      10
      • Mike Ford Mike Ford says:

        The poster identified as Laura Burrows probably isn’t the name of the ex wife’s attorney of an infamous AMC owner who shall rename nameless here.  Is she? I mean would ANY AMC owner you can think of be so stupid as to make phony posts about a competitor using an attorney’s name? Inconceivable!

        Good catch Tom and William!

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  2. Retired Appraiser Retired Appraiser says:

     

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  3. Hi Laura,

    I have worked with Landmark for many, many years and absolutely love them!  I find that they have wonderful caring people and take GOOD care of their appraisers. I have had nothing but a positive experience with this AMC and always try to get as much work from them as possible.  I do not know how you could have had a negative experience???

    3
    • Avatar Tom C says:

      Kristine, getting paid has always been the biggest issue appraisers have with Landmark. Their fees are also below C&R. Slow pay & low fees. They can be nice all they want, I’m not going broke to subsidize them. My focus is to make money. The other stuff doesn’t pay my bills. If they cared about us appraisers, they’d pay us on time and C&R fees.

      20
    • Avatar Jack Of All Trades says:

      Kristine….I’m sure you’ve had great success in finding the holy grail, the lost ark of the covenant and the spear of destiny.

      19
  4. Avatar Steve B says:

    About time they got those guys, I can’t wait until they repeal Dodd Frank and we can have these AMC’s go away. Take half my fee and waste all my time. Landmark never paid C&R and took forever to pay. I fired them a long time ago.

    15
    • Steve repealing Dodd Frank will do NOTHING to make AMCs go away. NOTHING. What it will do is remove the pretense of appraiser independence and reasonable and customary fees being required. I agree Dodd frank was largely an empty shell with heavy burdens of financial institutions. Some were completely inappropriate (though not all).

      What IS (apparently) happening is that DF is being used as the political whipping boy to eliminate a lot of OTHER necessary agencies, laws and protections. Like ASC and TAF. BOTH are required under FIRREA. Their removal cannot take place without rewriting FIRREA (which appears to have been happening on a near monthly basis anyway!). Hard to believe its the same law that was passed in 1989 at all.

      Purely as appraisers, Dodd Frank had little to no real impact or benefit for appraisers without additional STATE laws to enforce its provisions.

      According to a copy of a post by Don Fiore (an Illinois appraiser according to his linkedIn account), State Senator Pamela Althoff (R) has introduced a bill before the Springfield Legislature to completely deregulate AMCs in Illinois. His post urges affected Illinois appraisers to contact Ms Althoff directly at (815) 455-6330 to go on record as opposing her bill. I think it would be even better for all appraisers across the country to call her and respectfully tell her how misguided her bill is and ask it to be voluntarily withdrawn.

      Y’all know I’m a republican as well as a union organizer but these kinds of stunts by my party is just plain embarrassing! Even for Illinois.

      7
  5. Avatar Jason says:

    Independent Settlement are very slow to pay and have won the prize for having the stupidest stips. Very hard to deal with…not worth the hassle. They also want you to pay $12 per report upload.

    The podcast is dead on. It’s a takeover of our industry. If the purpose of the AMC is to be the firewall between the appraiser and loan production, then how can they hire appraisers?

    15
  6. Avatar Kyle, FL says:

    I am an appraiser in Florida and have had a horrible time getting paid by Independent Settlement Services on files. I wish Florida had a law similar to NC as they’d have another consent order. I used to do business for LandShark as I call them but they would pay the lowest and the slowest not Customary or Reasonable at all.

    12
  7. Avatar Ralph says:

    I got a call the other day from an AMC to provide a fee quote. C&R in my state is generally $450-$500 for a non complex 1004. I quoted $600 and the rep on the phone asked why so high, that’s at least $100 higher than we can pay in that area. I informed the rep that the additional $100-$150 I charge is “MY AGGRAVATION FEE” of simply having to deal with an AMC, the constant status requests, e-mails, texts, phone calls, the review process and the additional scope of work. The rep told me they would lose money, I said that’s not my problem, I’m sure you make enough off all those guys accepting $250-$300 orders, but that was the fee in 1986. Occasionally they have to cave and agree to my fee when it’s busy, but I refuse to subsidize them when they make my life hell and remember, a typical C&R fee includes not having to deal with a PAIN IN THE ARSE 3rd party, which is why we should all be upping our fees. The AMC’s can pass the additional costs on the the borrower, I don’t care, but it should not be coming out of our end!

    17
  8. What other states does this AMC operate in? One has to wonder if they ALSO self reported their multiple offenses to those states as well.

    Respectfully, “cash flow” problems is no excuse. MOST AMCs charge or bill the borrower direct and are paid before they ever send the appraiser out to do the inspection.

    Appraisers should not be forced into providing uncompensated account factoring services for either AMCs or their clients. Not ever.

    The misconception that it is somehow “OK to start the clock or to pay only 30 days after an appraisal is accepted” is morally wrong!

    Before we were prohibited from collecting fees at the door, the payment of a fee didn’t absolve us of our obligations to respond to legitimate consumer complaints; bank requirements, FNMA compliance issues or any other VALID issue that is raised by an AMC with an appraiser.

    Therefor there is NO REASON I am not paid within the exact same time frame that I am required to meet for completion of the appraisal from date of inspection!

    If they require a completed report 48 hours from date of inspection, pay me in the same time frame! If the AMC requires the report in ten days from date of inspection, then pay me in the same time frame! You can pay by direct deposit or ACH.

    The real reason AMCs don’t pay for at least thirty days is so they have a financial club they can hold over an appraisers head to make them jump through hoops. A lever to force uncompensated scope creep on the appraiser.

    If THEY don’t get paid for thirty days then that is THEIR problem. It’s not my job to subsidize their accounts receivable, or bad business model. It’s time appraisers stop accepting 30 days as being “reasonable”.

    What the hell is reasonable about anyone paying me thirty days AFTER they already collected the money themselves? It places undue risk of non payment squarely on the small business man or woman fee appraiser. Appraisers PLEASE STOP inferring to state regulators that a subsidized ’30 day float period’ at our expense is an acceptable rule!

    We are state licensed and regulated. They have more than enough recourse if an appraiser fails or refuses to supply a USPAP compliant product in accordance with the engagement agreement. It’s not fair that the ‘little guy’ must chase the ‘big guy’ for payment. Fees must NOT be held hostage for ANY quality control (excuses) or pressure to do more than was agreed to for free!

    On commercial appraisal assignments over a certain amount I collect half up front and the balance is due “on notificaton of report completion BUT PRIOR TO DELIVERY. There are no exceptions. On smaller jobs I want the whole thing in advance. It’s usually non refundable or only refundable on carefully spelled out conditions BEFORE the inspection appointment.

    Only $2,500 fine? Let a licensed or certified appraiser commit the same offense and the fine is $5,000 to $10,000 in some states.

    8
  9. Baggins Baggins says:

    Landmark, the home of the reverse FHA, clueless telecom workers, and downright rude and counter productive work from home underwriters.

    They call once a day, per order. If you dare to try and update multiple orders at once, they’ll call back immediately regardless.

    If you love micro bidding every single order from now to infinity with absolutely no future workload reliability, being constantly played against your peers so the amc can make an extra buck, answering the phone once a day including weekends per order in queue, getting stipped for each and every order regardless of quality, and dealing with underwriter ladies whom answer the phones from at home gigs with cats meowing and soap operas playing in the background, you’ll love landmark amc.

    What Landmark, why U lie? Why 4 mad? Problemo?

    2
  10. Avatar Ex appraiser says:

    I signed up for Independent Settlement Services with a guy named Jerome. He sounded reasonable, and in 2015 this was the first work I performed for an AMC which I vowed I would never work for. Moving to another state and not having clients I found this a necessity, so I did some reviews for them. One guy called and started asking me to add on to the report (scope creep), and the questions were so stupid, I asked if he was licensed. He said he was. I got his name and checked with the Pennsylvania board who said he was not licensed. I got paid, luckily, but another review I spent a lot of time on because the appraiser didn’t include some sales in the neighborhood near the date of value, and later I found out it was for a company that sued appraisers, so they were using my experience, especially in litigation to prepare their attorney for the lawsuit. They lied to me and refused to increase the fee.  I called Jerome and he defended their taking advantage of me, so I told him never to call me again. I wouldn’t give them the time of day; they are opportunists, and don’t know anything about appraisal; Leeches, bloodsuckers, and just plain old con artists…..

    2

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Two AMCs Disciplined in VA

by VaCAP Board time to read: 2 min
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