Who is the client in the preappraisal? Please don't tell me it is Zaio.
Did anyone from Zaio ever clarify that issue?
Nope.
I think that Zaio might be able to write up a "terms of use" agreement that has to be "read" and checked off by the client prior to downloading the report. They could probably devise a precast SOW that would be aimed at intended users that are "identified by type" as mortgage lenders, so they might be able to handle the requirement for identifying the use and users that way.
From a conceptual basis the problem I'm having with that take-it-or-leave-it approach is that when a client agrees that the precast SOW is approrpriate by checking the "yes, I agree" box, they're also doing so for their lender. In other words, they are acting as the agent for that lender. As we all know, some of these loan originators really are agents for their respective lenders - with the authority to make such decisions - but most are not.
Moreover, if the requirements for identifying their clients were strictly a reporting issue, than an automated system that inserts the client's name into the report could comply with SR2-2.*.i . However, client identification is also part of the development requirements in SR1-2.a and the SOW requirements in the SOWR (lines 409, and 419-421). The automated insertion of a client's name into a report cannot meet that requirement. The individual appraiser is still required to identify their client for development purposes, and that's supposed to occur prior to the completion of the appraisal.
These so-called "pre-appraisals" would therefore still have to identify a client at the time they are developed, and any changes that occur would result in new assignments with their own SOW requirements.
I just don't see how Zaio can get around these requirements short of having their ZA sit in front of a computer all day waiting for assignments to come in, identifying their clients and only then proceeding with the rest of the appraisal process.
From Zaio's descriptions of their process, that doesn't appear to be how it works. It appears as though the appraisal development is performed at one point by the ZA, periodically updated, and it is only when a client enters the system looking for an appraisal on a property that the system, not the appraiser, enters the client's name into the report, just prior to automatically signing the report for the appraiser using their stored signature.
No matter how Zaio portrays it, their process does not follow the process of
1) identify assignment elements
2) identify the appropriate SOW for those assignment elements
3) execute the SOW
It's more like:
1) Make assumptions about most of the assignment elements
2) identify an appropriate SOW based on those assumptions
3) execute the SOW
4) provide a take-it-or-leave-it agreement, after the fact, for the client to either accept or reject a workproduct that was not, in fact, developed specifically for them.
That agreement basically puts the client in charge of validating the assumptions about SOW that were made by the Zaio Zone Appraiser, even though per the SOWR (Lines 420-421) the responsibility for SOW decisions ultimately rest with the appraiser.
I can see how some of these conflicts can be reconciled, but I don't have enough imagination to see how they can all be reconciled.
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