Tagged: lawsuit

The AMCs: Coming Soon to a Lawsuit Near You 36

The AMCs: Coming Soon to a Lawsuit Near You

The AMCs built an entire system on silence, and now the quiet parts are being said out loud. For years, the mortgage industry has insisted that appraisal management companies are the guardians of independence, the compliance buffer that keeps lenders and appraisers at a safe distance. Yet 2025 has delivered a storyline that feels more like satire than industry narrative. Borrowers are suing, judges are listening, and the AMC business model is beginning to look less like a safeguard and more like a very expensive middleman with a very opaque invoice. The first shock came from California, where the Timmins...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / CFPB

How Bureaucratic Overreach Turned Real Estate Appraisers into Scapegoats 26

How Bureaucratic Overreach Turned Real Estate Appraisers into Scapegoats

This is what bureaucratic overreach looks like: a maze of rules with no exit, a hearing held while you’re hospitalized, a lawsuit dismissed but still billed. Bureaucratic overreach isn’t a policy flaw, it’s a strategy.  If you’re a real estate appraiser in 2025, odds are you’ve already met Kafka. Not in a literature class, but in your inbox, via a letter from HUD, a complaint from a borrower, or a summons from a regulatory agency that’s decided your opinion of value is now a civil rights issue. The federal government isn’t just investigating appraisers, it’s industrialized the process. Hundreds of...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / HUD / The US Department of Housing and Urban Development / Trending

A Review of MEIN COMP: The Last Appraiser 33

A Review of MEIN COMP: The Last Appraiser

If Orwell moonlighted as an appraiser, and Kafka had a side hustle in compliance, “MEIN COMP: The Last Appraiser” by David Samnick would be their love child. But this isn’t dystopian fantasy, it’s a forensic autopsy of a profession that was methodically dismantled while regulators smiled, and algorithms sharpened their knives. Samnick’s book is fiction the way a courtroom sketch is fiction. The names are changed, but the faces are familiar, and the tactics are real. Through a cast of fictional appraisers, each representing a phase in the slow-motion collapse of independent valuation, we witness the insertion of middlemen, the...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Trending

No, Appraisers Didn’t Cause America’s Racial Wealth Gap 19

No, Appraisers Didn’t Cause America’s Racial Wealth Gap

Appraisers are being dragged into the racial wealth gap debate, but the real gap is between racial accusation and actual evidence, and courts aren’t buying it.  After years of feckless payouts by insurance companies and corporations, the era of using the courts to harass appraisers for their value opinions has ended. Last week, a U.S. District Court judge in Maryland threw out a discrimination lawsuit on summary judgment. It was brought against an appraiser by a militant professor at Johns Hopkins University and his wife, who passed away since the filing of the suit. She, too, was a professor at...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / Trending

Appraisal Institute’s Harassment, Tests, and Dance with AMCs 45

Appraisal Institute’s Harassment, Tests, and Dance with AMCs

The Appraisal Institute’s latest chapter is a double dose of harassment woes — harassment allegations rocking its leadership and the systemic harassment of appraisers by AMCs, all under a scandalous spotlight.  The New York Times article by Debra Kamin, published on May 8, 2025, unveils a disturbing culture within the Appraisal Institute (AI), peeling back the curtain on a decade of alleged sexual harassment with Craig Steinley — former president and current vice president — who found himself in the uncomfortable spotlight. Accused by at least eight women of inappropriate behavior, Steinley’s antics include unwanted groping, as detailed in interviews...

AI / AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Institute / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News

The Perfect Storm: A Veteran’s Take on a Dying Craft 97

The Appraisal Profession’s Perfect Storm: A Veteran’s Take on a Dying Craft

The new UAD form, the AMC fee gouging, the waivers, the false bias claims. It’s a perfect storm of assaults.  I’ve been an appraiser since 1993, back when fax machines were cutting-edge and the internet was a clunky novelty. Over three decades, I’ve seen this profession weather storms, economic crashes, regulatory overhauls, you name it. But what’s happening now? It’s not a storm; it’s a tsunami. Our industry is hemorrhaging talent, drowning under false accusations, and getting squeezed by corporate greed and bureaucratic overreach. As someone who’s stubbornly refused to bend the knee to Appraisal Management Companies (AMCs), I’m here...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisal Subcommittee

Appraisal Institute Scandal - Widespread Fraud Uncovered 92

Appraisal Institute Scandal – Widespread Fraud Uncovered

The Appraisal Institute is embroiled in yet another scandal, and this time it involves widespread fraud and cover-ups at the highest levels of the organization. Alissa Akins, a former director at AI, blew the whistle on a long-running scheme where the nonprofit knowingly misreported test scores to state regulators, potentially allowing unqualified appraisers to get licensed. When Akins tried to sound the alarm and fix the problems, she was met with a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude from leadership and ultimately got fired in retaliation. It’s absolutely mind-boggling that an organization tasked with upholding standards and ethics in the appraisal...

AI / Appraisal / Appraisal Institute / Appraisal News / Appraisal Organizations / Appraisers News

NFHA Funding Dries Up 54

NFHA Funding Dries Up

The NFHA is feeling the heat as their funding evaporates, putting a major kink in their anti-appraiser crusade.  The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) has found itself in a precarious position as their funding well runs dry, jeopardizing their ongoing legal battle against Maryland appraiser Shane Lanham. This development is a ray of hope not only for Lanham, who has been unjustly accused of racial bias in his appraisals, but for the entire appraisal community who have been unfairly targeted by NFHA’s relentless smear campaign. The NFHA, in cahoots with the Biden administration’s Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / HUD / The US Department of Housing and Urban Development / Trending

AMCs Deceptive Fee Skimming Exposed in Lawsuit 67

AMCs Deceptive Fee Skimming Exposed in Lawsuit

Rocket Mortgage and the AMCs actively conceal this fee skimming from borrowers, never disclosing the proportion of the “appraisal fee” that is pocketed by the AMC rather than being paid to the appraiser.  The class action lawsuit, Timmins v. Clear Capital, et al., filed on November 1 in the Superior Court of California, County of Stanislaus, sheds light on the deceptive and unfair business practices allegedly perpetrated by ClearCapital.com, Inc., Core Valuation Management, Inc., and Rocket Mortgage, LLC in relation to the appraisal fees charged to borrowers in home mortgage transactions. The complaint asserts that these defendants engaged in a...

AMC / Appraisal / Appraisal Management Companies / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / CFPB

Class Action Lawsuit of Targeted Appraisers 39

Class Action Lawsuit of Targeted Appraisers

Join me in this class action lawsuit and help take a stand against HUD and the wrongful persecution of appraisers.  Nationwide Call to Action: Seeking Legal Representation for Class-Action Lawsuit Against HUD Investigations For over two Years I have been subjected to systemic abuse, unwarranted investigations, and procedural violations at the hands of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). My name is Kenneth Mullinix, and I am an experienced VA-approved appraiser who has been targeted in a series of baseless investigations that have severely damaged my career, reputation, and personal well-being. Despite being cleared by other authorities after...

Appraisal / Appraisal News / Appraisers News / HUD / The US Department of Housing and Urban Development / Trending

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