The reason FIRREA stipulates that the lender (or it's agent, which is what causes most of our problems) is required to engage the appraiser is because the feds came to the conclusion - from experience - that borrower engaged appraisals were even more of a threat to appraiser impartiality than lender-engaged appraisals.
From a regulatory standpoint it's a lot easier for the feds to regulate the conduct of the lenders than the mortgage brokers, if for no reason other than there being fewer of them. It's impossible to regulate the borrowers. We tried to excise the brokers out of the equation even way back then, but the mortgage banking lobby was successful in inserting the "or its agent" clause into FIRREA, much to our dismay. The fact that the feds didn't do their job with the lenders over the last few years doesn't diminish the dynamics or the reasoning for designating the lenders as being the accountable party.
It's been my experience that a mortgage broker's use of an appraisal and their definition of what constitutes a good appraisal is usually very different from that of a regulated institution or a federal banking examiner. To a mortgage broker, an appraisal is part of their marketing package; it's a sales brochure, their "intended use" of which is to entice a lender to loan as much money as possible on that property. That's very different that what we describe as the intended use of the appraisal in our reports.
Nobody is obligated to hire me; yes, this is true, but when a mortgage brokerage AGENT agrees to hire me, then the end lender must take my work, the only provision outstanding is whether I am competent to perform the assignment at hand.
Again, I'd remind you that it's highly unlikely that most of the mortgage brokers you work for are actually contracted agents of the lenders to whom they submit and are acting in their best interests. There are different levels of agency. These LOs are not representatives of that lender. They're outside sales people, not bankers.
The bottom line here is that at least one party on the lender's side of the transaction will be held legally accountable for the manner in which the appraisal assignment is engaged, and right now, your brokers aren't that party. That's why the lenders (who are that accountable party) have the discretion they have. It's a question of fairness.
I suggest you work on getting on more approval lists rather than complain about entitlement issues. That was how it worked for all appraisers prior to licensing and it continues to be the way it works for commercial appraisers. As a matter of fact, it's possible that the residential lenders might go back to approval lists by the time this current mess is over.
If you want to swim at this end of the pool you need to let go of the side.
