Mejappz
Elite Member
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2005
- Professional Status
- Certified Residential Appraiser
- State
- Florida
*** FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ***
AT FEDERAL AGENCY, THE MAYHEM IS THE MESSAGE
VENTURA, Calif. (March 15, 2024) – Czech-German author Franz Kafka wrote
“The Trial” in 1915. The novel is a reflection on bureaucracy, power and
absurdity. Its protagonist, Josef, is arrested and prosecuted by a mysterious
and inaccessible authority for a crime that is never revealed to him or the
reader. It’s a man’s journey through an incomprehensible and dehumanizing
landscape.
Ken Mullinix has become a figure from a Kafka novel. He’s collateral damage in
a campaign by a ponderous U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development that pits the might of a nearly 10,000-employee federal agency
wielding $214 billion in budgetary resources against a private citizen for
rendering an unpopular opinion.
In the yearslong process, Mullinix, who has been a real property appraiser in
Southern California for 35 years, has learned that the agency may be violating
its own policies in the way it is carrying out its investigation of him. He believes
about 300 appraisers are ensnared in similar HUD probes based on frivolous
complaints by questionable complainants using nonprofits as surrogates and
contract investigators not subject to Title 5 conflict-of-interest constraints.
These constraints otherwise apply to all federal employees.
The contractors have HUD email addresses and are indistinguishable from
federal employees, said Mullinix.
He believes these investigations are simply designed to intimidate independent
state-licensed appraisers, who, he contends, are caught in a supercharged
political atmosphere and being blamed for simply doing their jobs, which
occasionally involves delivering an opinion of value that costs a broker his
commission or upsets a borrower. He believes delegitimizing and marginalizing
appraisers is the point. As with title insurance, the Biden administration wants
to nationalize these activities.
HUD has been signaling to commissioned real estate salespeople, employees
at nonbank lenders, disgruntled borrowers and HUD-affiliated groups to bring
them appraisers for dubious discrimination cases. Last year, HUD posted
notice in the Federal Register it wished to allow convicted felons – white-collar
criminals and perjurers – to become “discrimination testers.” You can read the
rulemaking here.
Many of the complaints against appraisers, Mullinix said, seem to come in
cases where value opinions don’t rise to levels that make transactions work.
There are also complaints, like the one against him, that appear to be stage-
managed by outside actors.
Mullinix has become a student of the “Title VIII Complaint Intake, Investigation,
and Conciliation Handbook (8024.1).” The handbook is designed to protect
citizens from overzealous federal workers. He found section after section had
been violated in his own investigation by the HUD contractor.
“For example, the handbook requires the HUD investigator to explain the entire
procedure to the respondent at the outset of any investigation,” he said. “This
never occurred in my case.”
There’s a pathway, he has learned, to file a counter-complaint. There’s the
HUD Office of Inspector General, there is his member of Congress representing
California’s 47th District, there are public-interest pro bono law firms such as the
Pacific Legal Foundation, the Institute for Justice and the New Civil Liberties
Alliance.
He takes inspiration from Shane Lanham, the Maryland appraiser who is taking
the fight to a pair of ethnic-studies professors at Johns Hopkins University who,
along with their lawyer, have caused his name to be tarnished on a national
scale for alleged discrimination – only because his opinion of value did not rise
to the professors’ expectation of what their home was worth. Lanham is both
defending himself from these baseless allegations and prosecuting a
defamation case against the professors. You can contribute to his GoFundMe
page here.
But back to Mullinix. He has become a full-time defendant in a system in which
the process itself is the punishment. It’s a scorched-earth campaign. The full
might of a federal agency turned on a mom-and-pop appraiser who is paid to
render opinions of value.
“I take great pride in my work and adhere strictly to the highest standards of
professionalism and ethics,” he said. For three years, he has been working full
time to clear his name. He’s a professional defendant with the full might of a
federal agency arrayed against him.
# # #
Jeremy Bagott is a real estate appraiser and former newspaperman. His most
recent book, “The Ichthyologist’s Guide to the Subprime Meltdown,” is a
concise almanac that distills the cataclysmic financial crisis of 2007-2008 to its
essence. This pithy guide to the upheaval includes essays, chronologies,
roundups and key lists, weaving together the stories of the politics-infused
Freddie and Fannie; the doomed Wall Street investment banks Lehman and
Bear Stearns; the dereliction of duty by the Big Three credit-rating services; the
mayhem caused by the shadowy nonbank lenders; and the massive
government bailouts. It provides a rapid-fire succession of “ah-hah” moments
as it lays out the meltdown, convulsion by convulsion.
# # #
If you’d like to be on this mailing list but at a different email address, please go
to the sign-up page here.
-END-
AT FEDERAL AGENCY, THE MAYHEM IS THE MESSAGE
VENTURA, Calif. (March 15, 2024) – Czech-German author Franz Kafka wrote
“The Trial” in 1915. The novel is a reflection on bureaucracy, power and
absurdity. Its protagonist, Josef, is arrested and prosecuted by a mysterious
and inaccessible authority for a crime that is never revealed to him or the
reader. It’s a man’s journey through an incomprehensible and dehumanizing
landscape.
Ken Mullinix has become a figure from a Kafka novel. He’s collateral damage in
a campaign by a ponderous U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development that pits the might of a nearly 10,000-employee federal agency
wielding $214 billion in budgetary resources against a private citizen for
rendering an unpopular opinion.
In the yearslong process, Mullinix, who has been a real property appraiser in
Southern California for 35 years, has learned that the agency may be violating
its own policies in the way it is carrying out its investigation of him. He believes
about 300 appraisers are ensnared in similar HUD probes based on frivolous
complaints by questionable complainants using nonprofits as surrogates and
contract investigators not subject to Title 5 conflict-of-interest constraints.
These constraints otherwise apply to all federal employees.
The contractors have HUD email addresses and are indistinguishable from
federal employees, said Mullinix.
He believes these investigations are simply designed to intimidate independent
state-licensed appraisers, who, he contends, are caught in a supercharged
political atmosphere and being blamed for simply doing their jobs, which
occasionally involves delivering an opinion of value that costs a broker his
commission or upsets a borrower. He believes delegitimizing and marginalizing
appraisers is the point. As with title insurance, the Biden administration wants
to nationalize these activities.
HUD has been signaling to commissioned real estate salespeople, employees
at nonbank lenders, disgruntled borrowers and HUD-affiliated groups to bring
them appraisers for dubious discrimination cases. Last year, HUD posted
notice in the Federal Register it wished to allow convicted felons – white-collar
criminals and perjurers – to become “discrimination testers.” You can read the
rulemaking here.
Many of the complaints against appraisers, Mullinix said, seem to come in
cases where value opinions don’t rise to levels that make transactions work.
There are also complaints, like the one against him, that appear to be stage-
managed by outside actors.
Mullinix has become a student of the “Title VIII Complaint Intake, Investigation,
and Conciliation Handbook (8024.1).” The handbook is designed to protect
citizens from overzealous federal workers. He found section after section had
been violated in his own investigation by the HUD contractor.
“For example, the handbook requires the HUD investigator to explain the entire
procedure to the respondent at the outset of any investigation,” he said. “This
never occurred in my case.”
There’s a pathway, he has learned, to file a counter-complaint. There’s the
HUD Office of Inspector General, there is his member of Congress representing
California’s 47th District, there are public-interest pro bono law firms such as the
Pacific Legal Foundation, the Institute for Justice and the New Civil Liberties
Alliance.
He takes inspiration from Shane Lanham, the Maryland appraiser who is taking
the fight to a pair of ethnic-studies professors at Johns Hopkins University who,
along with their lawyer, have caused his name to be tarnished on a national
scale for alleged discrimination – only because his opinion of value did not rise
to the professors’ expectation of what their home was worth. Lanham is both
defending himself from these baseless allegations and prosecuting a
defamation case against the professors. You can contribute to his GoFundMe
page here.
But back to Mullinix. He has become a full-time defendant in a system in which
the process itself is the punishment. It’s a scorched-earth campaign. The full
might of a federal agency turned on a mom-and-pop appraiser who is paid to
render opinions of value.
“I take great pride in my work and adhere strictly to the highest standards of
professionalism and ethics,” he said. For three years, he has been working full
time to clear his name. He’s a professional defendant with the full might of a
federal agency arrayed against him.
# # #
Jeremy Bagott is a real estate appraiser and former newspaperman. His most
recent book, “The Ichthyologist’s Guide to the Subprime Meltdown,” is a
concise almanac that distills the cataclysmic financial crisis of 2007-2008 to its
essence. This pithy guide to the upheaval includes essays, chronologies,
roundups and key lists, weaving together the stories of the politics-infused
Freddie and Fannie; the doomed Wall Street investment banks Lehman and
Bear Stearns; the dereliction of duty by the Big Three credit-rating services; the
mayhem caused by the shadowy nonbank lenders; and the massive
government bailouts. It provides a rapid-fire succession of “ah-hah” moments
as it lays out the meltdown, convulsion by convulsion.
# # #
If you’d like to be on this mailing list but at a different email address, please go
to the sign-up page here.
-END-
