Agreed upon C.O.D. order can be deceiving

[Webbed Feet]

This one was in the stars and written in stone from the git go!

Mr. Sawyer,

I've decided to tear your post apart in order to get you to consider a few things.

Had a mortgage broker and homeowner ruin my Memorial Day weekend.

Your first mistake. Unless you want to be a slave to this industry, NEVER accept a due date right after a holiday weekend. Especially, after being jerked around, forsaken for a different appraiser, and then they come begging back after getting a POS. My bet is you are going to learn the hard way on this one that you should have demanded payment up front and set a due date to give you time to do this AFTER you returned from your trip. Why are you not charging for such a rush situation anyway?

She also told me that the reason the other appraiser was not acceptable was that the gross percertage adjustments were in excess of 60% on the comps.

Why did you bother listening to this? I personally stopped paying any attention to percentages of net and gross years ago, especially for acreage properties. Neither of those are any sort of measurement of a good appraisal versus a bad appraisal. What they are is stupid untrained underwriter nonsense and lazy appraiser nonsense who will not take the time to use and explain true market adjustments. Instead, this has become a false manipulator of appraisers to hit artificial percentages versus use market adjustments and explain them.

I explained that the sales comps were hard to find but prior to making an appointment I would pull all the research and make sure that the report that I would do would not have such excessive adjustments and would be credible which I did.

This was not only a really big mistake, but it is, or borders, on a USPAP violation. What you technically did was perform a desktop appraisal with a SOW different from the FHA assignment with Fannie SOW (03/2005 forms) you were engaged to do. With a promise that the one first assignment SOW results would be manipulated into being used for the second assignment SOW if you proceeded. If you don't understand what I just typed up in a reply post here, you need another USPAP class with strong points on the Ethics and SOW Rules. Under the circumstances you presented, you should have NEVER have made such a oral promise like that.

Well, since my time was limited prior to my going out of town. I worked 6 hours pulling all the data and entering all the comps Sat evening.

You made your own bed on that one. Now sleep in it. I understand taking the chance. Stuff happens.

Subject was 3 yr old MH from a manf that I had performed numerous prior reports on. <..... snip..... > and then she put husband on the phone and he was an **s. He started by saying he never paid more than 300 for an appraisal and it was asinine to charge 500 "beaver pelts" and went on and on and finally he hung up on me.

My bold on “numerous.” All I can say is what the hell? That is just plain weird. Lucky, but weird. Just exactly how many times in the last three years, 2007, 2006, 2005, could this get appraised headed right into a down market for much of the U.S. .. Oh well. “Numerous” times in three years, only three years old, and this is your first time working with these flaky borrowers? I mean what? The borrowers just bought the darn thing and already are trying for an FHA refinance in a Florida down market???? ... Nevermind, I'm not sure I want the story on this.

Like I said, I already had over 6 hrs invested and I contacted the broker Sat night and explained that I had never, never had anything close to this happening and never experienced a more irrogant person over the phone (he must have been tanked up) Next moring on Sunday her manager called and we talked and I told him again I only do appraisals C.O.D. except for banks and he agreed and said he would straighten everything out. I told him it would now be late Sunday before I could get out there.

Wow, lots of mistakes here. After such a phone call I would have immediately told that manager they have a serious unresolved customer issue. That due to the call I want secure payment mailed to me ahead of time. Your client “Agreeing” to you picking up at the door at that point is an agreement for nothing at all. Especially, an oral agreement over the phone. It was way past time to reschedule a due date for two weeks, and fire up a quality written engagement contract and require management to sign it. The contract has to require they are responsible for payment regardless of your success, or lack of it, in collecting at the door.

<..... snip.....> her adult son is there and leads me through the residence for the inspection. Mommy or Daddy are not there. Upon my completion I inquire did your Mom leave an envelope for me with payment of my fees. His response was no. <..... snip.....>

Oh man! You are really in learning mode huh? This is called being a glutton for punishment. A) You should have called that morning to verify the borrowers would be there AND had the cash. B) Upon arriving and they are NOT there your very first act should have been to ask for the money after that fun phone call with daddy. Finding there was no money, you should have told son to call mommy and daddy right on the spot. IF sonny said he could not do it you should have licked your wounds and went home with no inspection. Or got that MBer on the phone right then and there perhaps.

<.... snip....> Next I get a call from homeower saying that the broker told her that I would get payment after she got a copy of the report.

Well of course! Both you and the prior appraiser are getting jerked around by this Mber. So is the borrower, and the borrower's are total flakes. They have no money to pay for an appraisal in the first place. The Mber already knew that. All the telltale signs of this are later in your post.

I came home and completed the report. I then send an email with the invoice only stating that SOW was C.O.D. and report release upon receipt of payment.

As to why appraisers think failing in their part of the contract for services somehow does something for them I have no idea. If you believe that two wrongs make a right later in court, you again are going to learn something the hard way.

One final note, of my 5 comps, 2 of them the gross adjustment was 26 & 27% while the rest were 10-20% gross adjustments.

See my above. I would not be so quick to brag on that if you failed to use market derived adjustments in the process just in order to have low net and gross percentages. Honestly, from the sounds of things I suspect you have allowed mortgage lending to set the wrong goal posts for your work. Your percentages, versus the prior appraisal percentages, don't mean a thing to a really unbiased review appraiser. We all have seen “tweak the percentages” for years. I don't mean that you tweaked the percentages, I just mean those percentages do not equal bragging rights by a long shot.

I also forgot to say this is an FHA which the MB did give me a case number.

Oh man! ... This should have been one of your very first clues you had a nonstarter on this assignment! .. If that case number was assigned for the other appraisers appraisal....there cannot be another appraisal for six months by a different appraiser on the same property for the same purpose! .. This tells me right off that Mber is playing games. She is playing the “FHA shop an appraisal” game by not submitting the original appraisal information back to FHA. My first act would have been to hit the phone to the local HOC and check this all out the moment I learned a first FHA appraisal had already been done.

The M/B did send me the report by the other appraiser with the gross adjustments of 42%, 64% & 60% since all of his comps came from MH villages and RV parks where the site size was 2,500 sq ft/ 10,000 sq ft $ 1200 sq. All his comps were 13, 8 & 4 months old sales. Also his invoice stated payment due within 90 days or closing, whichever occurs first. Where's skippeeeeeee

Ignoring the comp issues, what do you think is going to happen when this other appraiser demands payment, you demand payment, and you both go to the local HOC with the same case number on the same property for the same loan? Yes, if the subject had five acres versus those for comps in that other appraisal, my State board would have a copy of that appraisal pronto. But that does not alter the fact you should have seen this coming because this one had red lights and sirens blazing the entire time every step of the way.

Consider it a good business lesson in turning hindsight into foresight.

Webbed.

 

[RSW]

Well said, Webbed!

 

[Mountain Man]

I was working under a very limited time frame. I have been in business on my own now 7 months and have been 100% on my collections up until now. I have not had to write anything off yet! Got to finish packing now

When taking some time off for ME, I always get a last minute call for something rush. A few are reasonable and doable, many are not. Seems to me you accepted one that was not reasonable and doable in your time frame, especially given the LO screwed around for a week. When calls like that come in, I just tell them I can do it... The lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.

 

[CURT VAN HOOSER]

I never did get an answer from the OP about the foundation inspection.

Perhaps he has already departed on his golf trip.

 

[CURT VAN HOOSER]

I agree with Ken.....except about Webbed being "fluffy." Although I have never met Mr. Feet and he may, in fact, be fluffy............years ago wasn't there a comedian who described someone as...."he's not fat, he's just fluffy"....?

Jonathan Winters...

 

[Jason W. Kelley]

Cash is king in this business. I have been burned too many times with other forms of payment. And I agree with a previous post about FHA COD. There is nothing that forbids you from accepting a COD for FHA assignment.

 

[aussie ken]

Jonathan Winters...

Was't he the big kid in Mork and Mindy?

 

[Ross (CO)]

I totally agree with the content and the message of posting #31.

The original posting clearly explains how the appraiser was getting hosed and played from the start. The process of assignment engagement and the fulfillment of the other important details of the assignment were NEVER on-track from the beginning. Too much attention was given to some other lame-brain appraisal report that had been done. (I still can not figure out why that client sent the appraiser this other report !.....and then as to why one would feel an obligation to submit that report to the state officials for having "bad comps".)

Should have required the client to send the quoted fee with overnight delivery, with adequate time to convert that payment into cash-in-pocket, and then arrange to visit the property. One should NEVER have mentioned the comments about a "golf vacation with the buddies"......and simply stated the calendar date when the report would be delivered.

If the client could not accept those conditions then they could find someone else to do their report......and the appraiser would never have had to "spend 6 hours" gathering comparable data (etc.)....nor endured that agonizing interaction with the bozo son of the homeowners......who did not have the PROMISED fee payment to give !

Hopefully this experience did not affect your golf scores. What a perfect opportunity, though, to enlighten your buddies while riding in the golf cart about the deterioration of the entire residential-refinance-purchase-mortgage industry that is progressively unfolding before our eyes as 2008 moves forward. The worst of it all still looms on the horizon.

 

[Jim Hill]

The David Sawyer story brings up an interesting topic on which is the best way to get your money from the client.

Before eveyone just say's UP FRONT let me explain.

I know many appraisers who will only accept credit cards and I also know of an appraiser who got burned a few times when the customer called the credit card company and cancelled stopped the payment.

How many of you use Pay Pal even with many of the problems it has?

Here in Florida I once had someone give me a check which I put right in the bank.

About 10 days later the bank contacted me because the person stopped payment on the check and they took the money back out of my account.

I went and spoke to the bank about it but they told me that the customer can do this.

I thought there was sort of time limit for stopping payment on a check once it's is written but the bank said they can do it and that now it is a civil matter.

Other then telling eveyone you will only work for CASH what else can we do?

Jim Hill

 

[Hamlet]

The David Sawyer story brings up an interesting topic on which is the best way to get your money from the client.

Before eveyone just say's UP FRONT let me explain.

I know many appraisers who will only accept credit cards and I also know of an appraiser who got burned a few times when the customer called the credit card company and cancelled stopped the payment.

How many of you use Pay Pal even with many of the problems it has?

Here in Florida I once had someone give me a check which I put right in the bank.

About 10 days later the bank contacted me because the person stopped payment on the check and they took the money back out of my account.

I went and spoke to the bank about it but they told me that the customer can do this.

I thought there was sort of time limit for stopping payment on a check once it's is written but the bank said they can do it and that now it is a civil matter.

Other then telling eveyone you will only work for CASH what else can we do?

Jim Hill

Cash the check at their bank immediately upon leaving the inspection.