If economic necessity forces you to accept UAD 3.6 assignments, you cannot afford to sign blindly while exposed to massive secondary market liability risks. The reality on the ground for independent real estate appraisers is unforgiving. While the industry debates the long term dangers of data harvesting, many independent business owners face an immediate, binary choice: sign the new UAD 3.6 reports and accept Certification 25, or stop feeding your family. Not every appraiser has a robust book of private estate, divorce, and non lending work. Transitioning away from AMCs takes time, marketing skills, and capital that many simply do...
The rollout of the new UAD 3.6 framework has triggered a major wave of compliance literature, and a perfect example is a recent article by Woody Fincham at Valuation Nation, titled “Certification 25: What’s the Real Risk to the Appraiser?”. In his piece, Woody sets aside the rhetoric and lists my AppraisersBlogs article regarding our legal defenses under this dataset as a citation reference at the end of his post. While he acknowledges the existence of this perspective, his broader argument claims that the legal risks of signing Certification 25 are low, the threat of regulatory discipline is minimal, and...
A fellow appraiser dropped a direct message in my inbox with a link to home inspector Preston Kincaid’s Facebook video, and watching him warn the public sent a chill through me because his words mirrored the exact warnings I have been shouting about our own appraisal profession. To understand the shock, you first need to know what Spectora is and how home inspectors work. Spectora is the dominant cloud software platform used by roughly 7,000 independent home inspectors across the country to draft, format, and deliver digital property inspection reports. By law and standard contract, home inspectors operate under strict...
The insurance industry just verified the erasure of my legal defenses under UAD 3.6. The corporate apologists and tech insiders have spent weeks trying to downplay the Certification 25 confidentiality crisis. They’ve lined up to tell independent appraisers that the new language is just a passive weather report, a routine disclosure, or an innocent acknowledgement of a reality that has existed for many years. But the ultimate reality check just arrived from the very people who calculate risk for a living, and it completely blows the corporate defense strategy out of the water. Isaac Peck, Publisher of Working RE Magazine...
Shane Lanham, a Maryland appraiser, has found himself in a difficult situation as he is being sued in The United States District Court of Maryland. However, he is not backing down and fully intends to fight these allegations through trial. In addition, he is countersuing the accusers for defamation and seeking $500,000 in damages. Lanham firmly believes that the accusations of racism against him are baseless and he has engaged a consultant with significant experience in handling such cases. To ensure he has the best chance of success, Mr. Lanham has engaged a consultant with extensive experience in similar cases....
Originally known as Fannie Mae’s Collateral Underwriter (CU), and subsequently Collateral Underwriter 2.0 (CU-2)i this always dubious product of Fannie Mae is increasingly being referred to by some, if not many American Appraisers as The Fraudulator / Underwriter 2.0 (FU-2). To be clear it is not limited to the Collateral Underwriter (CU & CU-2) software. The new Fraudulator (FU-2) combines the CU products with their numerous improper uses. The end result of which includes OUTRIGHT FRAUD being perpetrated against banks via the repurchase letters Fannie Mae now issues on a quota based system rather than because of legitimate appraisal defects....
Does a mortgage lender have liability to the borrower for a negligent appraisal? As residential property prices plateau or decline in various markets and as borrowers have financial problems with fewer financing options, there are more legal claims being filed by borrowers against appraisers and lenders in relation to appraisals for loans made in recent years. Essentially, the cases are situations of “buyer-borrower remorse.” Leaving aside the appraiser’s potential liability, does a mortgage lender have liability to the borrower for a negligent appraisal? An Ohio appellate court recently said “no.” It ruled that the lender did not owe the borrower...
Free webinar on how to protect yourself against discrimination claims on 6/30/22, and today there will be a forum on “Racial Bias in the Home Appraisal Process”… OREP is sponsoring a free webinar on how to protect yourself and your business against discrimination claims. Leading trial attorney Craig Capilla has handled nearly 1,000 appraiser cases in his career and has been on the frontlines defending appraisers from lawsuits, state board complaints, and now, HUD Fair Housing (Discrimination) complaints. Capilla began his legal career working for Illinois’ professional regulation agency as a real estate prosecutor and since then has become one...
“[The builder] filed a grievance against me… and threatened to file a grievance every time I or others appraised below purchase price.” California and Nebraska couldn’t be more different, but both clearly want their states to be more like the fictional town of Lake Wobegon – a place where all the men are good-looking, all the children are above average and all properties appraise at or above their sale price. Parts of California Assembly Bill 948, which was signed into law in September, read like something from the satirical news site The Onion. The statute requires the state’s appraiser enforcement...
…appraisers believe that the bifurcated model and the use of unlicensed, untrained and unaccountable contractors for key elements of collateral assessment will adversely affect the health and welfare of the housing finance system, increase their own liability and damage the public trust… It is the goal of the Federal Financing Housing Agency (FHFA) to ensure the health and welfare of the housing finance system. FHFA oversees Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and has, for the time being, paused the testing and development of bifurcated appraisals that bypass the participation of licensed appraisers (FHFA Puts Brakes on Fannie’s Bifurcated Program). I...
