George Hatch
How much of bad appraisals is attributed to poor writing/reasoning skills vs deliberate violations of the ETHICS RULE? Was it poor sentence structure that caused that gross overvaluation or was it a deliberate error of omission or commission, committed for the express purpose of assisting a client to lie to the primary intended users of the appraisal?
My opinion, from having reviewed hundreds of these appraisals and interaction with appraisers over the years, is that bad appraisal are rarely due to poor writing skills, a segment may be due to poor reasoning skills, and a larger segment due to violations of the ethics rule. Where I depart from you is I believe that lack of a degree /equivalent in SOME cases, but far too many imo, leads to inadvertent violation of ethics because they cant' stand their ground and are easier to manipulate into it. Just as post HVCC the manipulation went to low fees/ knock them out like fast food TT
It is far less frequent that the college grads or equiv cant' tell the difference of an ethical line into a rationale of everybody is doing it or it's just another 10k slippery slope. If a college grad s going to cross the line, it is likely to be deliberate . There are far fewer people with the sociopath tendency to commit ethics violations or inflate value deliberately than there are weak reasoning or ill prepared to deal with pressure people that go in the wrong direction.The fact that professions with a higher level of education barrier see far fewer go in the wrong direction is an indicator.
For years I took live continuing ed USPAP with a great instructor who gave textbook and real world ethics violation examples...the eye rolling, doodling of cartoons and derision under breath elicited from a section of appraisers was telling- I did not ask them did you go to college,but their demeanor, conversation etc indicated they did not. I hate to write it because I don't want to sound like a snob but this is my direct experience.
What i'm saying is that a lot of appraisers are trying to persuade the AQB to use the state to further protect our economic interests. And I already acknowledged my own interests. Moreover, FOR YEARS I have warned appraisers to protect their own economic interests by not raising their own competition via taking on trainees. I'm sure you can see the distinction between telling someone to act in their own interests vs advocating for the state to act on their behalf to protect their interests]
Like I said, if you position against the state protection of your economic interest, drop your state appraisal license and compete without one. I see nothing wrong if appraisers expect a state to protect their interests, The lenders and AMC's have no problem lobbying or going for seats on state boards or govt agencies to protect their interests.
