NCPAC
The North Carolina Professional Appraisers Coalition
Speech given by Eric Miller, CDA to the
NC Appraisal Board during the Open Forum period on February 22, 2017
My name is Eric Miller, I have been a state certified appraiser for 24 years in eastern North Carolina.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today, I will be brief in my comments but would like to make some points regarding our profession and bring some items to your attention.
First, I would like to speak about AMCs and their duties to the clients and to the public of North Carolina.
I believe the backbone of the appraisal profession is ethics and accountability. To that point I believe there is a gap in both of these things regarding AMCs, whether intentional or not. After years of conversations with Bank staff and other appraisers it is clear that AMCs are not clearly communicating their obligations to their clients and to the public regarding appraisal fees. They are willfully withholding information from the clients regarding their obligations to meet State and Federal standards and to the appraisers and on occasion will request a revision or other information be placed in a report that would violated reporting under USPAP.
They are in some cases violating the customary and reasonable fee regulations without the lenders or clients knowledge by only sending or seeking work to or from the lowest bidder and using broadcast orders to skew the pay range of appraisers. You cannot make the argument that they are meeting customary and reasonable fees when they only accept the lowest fee possible regardless of quality, proximity, and experience. They are developing a negatively skewed bell curve with broadcast orders and fees that are from the early 1990s. AMCs regularly remove appraisers that will not work for the “published” fee, further
skewing the fee curve and or in some cases reduce the rating of the appraiser if they do not accept the low fee, which affects their further orders. If an appraiser willfully withholds information from their client or fails to notify their clients of a violation of regulations they can disciplined. AMCs should be held to the same standard.
I am aware it is nearly impossible to legislate or regulate ethical behavior, it is however possible to regulate transparency in the process. In regulating this transparency it enlightens both the clients and the public to the process and the destination of the fees. It is not enough to say it is possible for an appraiser to put the information in the report because AMCs are known for being punitive to appraisers for any behavior not considered in their best interest. I believe the Boards latest action in an unanimous vote to adopt the VA schedule as one benchmark was a big step in the right direction and I have been told this has resulted in increased interest in obtaining Trainee Licenses.
Some of the appraisers have also been made aware that some members of the Board staff are attempting to soften the burden of the AMCs to substantiate / validate their fees and not have any burden of proof for customary and reasonable fees. The result of this would be an erosion of trust of the system and its lack of enforcement of ethics and accountability would be detrimental to the public good.
The AMCs have been put in place by lenders and licensed by the state Appraisal Board to manage the ordering of appraisals and is some cases oversee the quality of reports. From time to time I have received a request from an AMC that would place my report and me in violation of USPAP. On some occasion I reached out to the board staff for advice and or guidance concerning the situations. There have been times where the board staff has made calls and or emails on my behalf in order to rectify the issue. The AMCs should be held accountable under law and held to the same standard for any request that could affect the credibility
and or jeopardized license of the appraiser. There was an issues in November where Roberta made a call for me, after the
call I have not received any more appraisals from the AMC and when I called back to get some clarification on and revision the worker at the AMC referred to me as “the guy who called the state” . While I’m aware that the appraiser can file complaints against and AMC, it is ultimately nail in the coffin for the appraiser if they do as he will not receive any further orders from the AMC and any lenders they services. I believe it is imperative to the process effectiveness that anonymous complaints be accepted.
Thank You For Your Time.
Speech delivered by Eric Miller, CDA and co-written with Tim Reida, CDA on 02/22/2017