The issue is not the individual appraiser. It is the product and its pimps that failed to ensure delivery of a uspap compliant appraisal while claiming to do so.

It is also the lender failing their obligations under FIRREA OR state law. A buyer sustained real loss as a result of these.

I’ll be amazed if OA; LO, AMC & the lender don’t all get sued.

I find it kind of ironic that you want this referred to the FTC as you are the one leading the charge to try to fix prices in favor of appraisers.

The State of Indiana’s Attorney General Office was not ‘happy’ about the nature of the report but concluded in the end that they did not have jurisdiction over this specific case. Possible as a result of it being a non-FRT. The letter I was sent was not specific beyond that. I know there was interest because I received two separate calls from an Assistant State Attorney General.

Georgia’s action or non-action is unknown. They required a notarized complaint, which is simply logistically more cumbersome so that complaint was made several weeks after Indiana’s. Their policies also differ from Indiana’s as many states do. Like so many other states, they feel no need to update complainants on the status.

Just stumbled upon this. Looked at the ASC website, it appears that all Michelle Shavon’s licenses are still in good shape across the board, no disciplinary actions taken…

You are correct. As a former employee, I can state for a fact that Clear Capital will do whatever is necessary to keep the banks happy and the vendors working.

My favorite part was approving broker price opinions that Wells Fargo had ordered and stated in writing, would be used for lending purposes.

Government investigations last for ever, Fraud continues from all sources.

In one of the earlier lender crises, S&L and bankers were absorbing the losses by taking over the failed portfolios, many vacant properties were found which should have been occupied!

Mike, wouldn’t you love to be a fly on the wall in the asset managers office when they have a discussion with loan processing and ask why or if WF is lending on non existent houses? Wonder if the appraisals for funding were more great quality Rels or Corelogic AMC products?

“Appraiser to employ hypothetical condition that a property exists which meets our sfr lending guidelines”

Another AWESOME one was trying to do a 2055 on a house, only to find out no house and to top it off, the site was >100 acres and split into 3 conservation easements with complicated state, private, and federal rights…

I got my inspection fee and they never got a report.

Funny how CC work sorta dried up after I used my brain.

In my humble non legal opinion “Yes”, that sure seems like bank fraud to me. It is also apparent consumer fraud since they induced the guy to invest on the premise that he’d be able to refinance and profit once the hypothesized as repaired items were taken care of.

My bet is the owner of the property (investor) has to file the complaint(s) himself since he is the one with legal standing; and it happened in Georgia. BTW, Georgia has NOT to my knowledge let this go by. At least not yet.

Mike

Wouldn’t that be bank fraud? Using the same photos for two (so called) appraisals?

I loved your entertaining comments in the “review” of this crap they are trying to get us to do. We need to refuse any of this type of work and get people out of the business, particularly when she doesn’t know what she is doing! Hybrid my ass; those are for roses and fruit trees; part incompetence and part fraud does not make a credible opinion or report. Only a whore would do work like this, but isn’t that what the pimp AMCs want, so they can capitalize on our education, license, continuing education, E&O, MLS data, forms, etc, phone, car expense (so they took out the car expense so you are at your desk) and only lazy people who don’t know what they are doing would do this kind of work.

We need to get them out of the business. The public thinks all appraisers are interchangeable and the banks think they can break us and have us work for slave wages and compete with Mumbai, but not me. I’d rather retire.

Regardless of outcome, I am reassured by that State’s AG Office taking the responsibility to investigate whether its appropriate for an out of state appraiser to be doing appraisal work in another state for property they never saw and for which there may not be any level of geographic appraisal competency.

Fellow appraisers, these are not empty gestures. I wonder what the activity level would be if a hundred appraisers had filed complaints?

John-Matt no one obtained the ‘legal authority’. A supplemental services provider simply removed it based on an unvetted complaint as is their policy. It wasn’t worth ABs time to argue with them since they can store the reports using alternative storage sites.

John you have chosen to deliberately distort and misrepresent both issues as well as your own background. You talk about imagined legal obligations that you have no clue on. Look at the thumbs up/down ratios. Do you really think you have persuaded anyone here?

By the way, when you are pretending to be the Georgia appraiser you should use a completely different computer from a location outside of MA where you and Matt share the same ISP.

As for my source their credibility is not in question at all since the crappy “appraisals” speak for themselves..unedited and as presented. All the diversion in the world will not change the FACTS that those two reports are spurious with no hint of credibility in any aspect of them.

Look up the broker who ostensibly prepared them. You think a guy that owns and operates 12-14+- offices in three different states, and seems to be a pretty big deal brokerage is actually going out and inspecting these properties himself? Let me help you John-Matt, the answer is a resounding “NO!”

So, the appraiser doesn’t know the WHO or even the WHAT of qualifications or the source of data she signed her name under.

Hopefully enough readers will send letters direct to the property owner and suggest he contact attorneys to see if he has a possible fraud claim against the broker-appraiser of AMC that assembled the “ClearVal Appraisal.” Maybe an E&O claim against the appraiser for the inflated values. He certainly doesn’t need to have an attorney to file a complaint in Georgia, Indiana and California (where the AMC is purportedly located).

Another datamaster cheerleader? Figures.

That’s probably the only effort which will provide corrections which all of us can benefit from.  Removing the one appraiser who likely already profited over 1 million dollars in 5 states won’t do anything.  Another will quickly follow the program and rise to fill that chair. Hell, I’m ready to complete evals myself now that I see the bigger picture. Clearly the profit outweighs the potential fines and penalties. You’d never see the inside of a jail cell but could roll the dice that if you could hold up for just a few years, you’d likely be a millionaire. You too could outsource all essential duties to typing services and hire a chauffeur.

But as amc’s have absurd flex cash, they will simply pursue normal avenues of approach, lobbying, bribing, and strong arming their way to victory. They have already won, the appraisers just are not understanding this yet. We are helpless in the face of major corporations and their employees whom have no personal accountability. The 10k/20k fine set was supposed to put them all out of business. As not a single instance of this ever materialized, it’s time to admit the law has not been applicable to appraisal management companies. These destructive companies put 100k appraisers out of work in 10 years. That’s 10k a year on average, or roughly 835 a month, or about 27 a day.  Turns out the argument they’re destroying the host were incorrect. Amc’s have purposefully driven licensed appraisers out of business, in hopes of capturing the entire valuation income pie for themselves with vastly reduced accountability and liability. Vulture capitalism at it’s finest. This is the end game. These companies expanded at record paces which exceeded actual known ponzi schemes, to business sizes exceeding well established major corporations with far more infrastructure employees and overhead. It is my understanding that to date not a single one of them has ever been audited or held to compliance with the majority of lending rules which everyone else has to follow. Prove me wrong.

Get em! Mission accomplished. Sort of. 

Now to alert every single regulatory agency in every single state, such trickery is likely happening right under their noses, courtesy of clear capital. Oh heck, everyone knows already, amc’s get a free pass and are literally above the law.

John-Matt-Lisa or whoever you are (Michele?) Now you’ve crossed over into Looney Tunes Land;

Where in my profile does it indicate Im a financial institution? As for my correct reasoning, YES. ANY appraiser that has legally come into possession of an appraisal report CAN make it public. Period. It is the originating appraiser that has an obligation to maintain privacy of NPI. I have dozens that I’ve been given over the years as representations of bad work. The reason none of those has ever been made public is they were good enough to maintain the illusion of being real appraisals and my advice to those sending them to me was either file state complaints or in four cases file state complaints plus ethics complaints with AI; or accept the existence of the bad work. There was no direct & immediate public interest to be served by publicizing them.

My understanding is that in these two Georgia cases, the owner finished all his planned renovations and wanted to refinance out of the short term loans. When the new appraisers came out to inspect the property the owner offered these appraisals in support of his strongly expressed desired value. They and anything they contained ceased to be NPI at that point.

There was reportedly some additional conversation that is purported to entail improper and undue pressure on the appraiser that was doing the inspection. (Actually considerably more to it was reported but I wasn’t there for the conversation so wont report it as factual).

The issue is: A phony appraisal was (2 actually) were prepared using a flawed system and process that does not remotely match Clear Capital advertised quality claims or reliability. An out of state appraiser was paid an inadequate amount to actually do the job properly that USPAP requires (since they were claiming USPAP compliance) & GOT CAUGHT doing crappy work. (And that’s putting it nicely).

All your phony arguments about alleged third and fourth party obligations to maintain a privacy level not preserved by the original appraiser OR AMC themselves are merely feeble efforts to distract from the real issue. That is “ClearVal Appraisals” as demonstrated by these two reports are worthless, do not comply with USPAP and appear to misrepresent values to the point where the original borrower may well have legal recourse to all parties involved. Whether the investors that loaned the money will also make claims is anybodies guess. We can only hope.

I’ve filed a formal complaint with Indiana and Georgia follows later this week. Then, after consulting with others, a decision gets made about filing a complaint with the states the AMC is licensed in. There may be jurisdictional issues.