An "Assignment" comes from an "Engagement."
To All,
This is a classic, showcasing why the members of the ASB need to be involved with FAQ's need to be rotated out and quite a few of these FAQs reconsidered over again. It's not that the concept of providing an addendum regarding an appraiser acknowledging a new sales contract, without 100% repeating the entire appraisal process, is bad. That concept is just fine. What is bad here is the ASB members have focused on the wrong things. For this answer they SHOULD have focused on the definition of "Assignment" in the context that any and all assignments begin with identification of the problem, intended use, and an engagement contract. Engagement contracts, once satisfied, mean the end of the assignment per the contract. So their answer is incorrect in my opinion. I am not aware of ANY real estate appraiser that considers their engagements open ended assignments wherein the appraisers have agreed to keep doing additional work for free forever and never come to an end.
So the reality here is the client is asking for a closed assignment to be reopened when the appraiser has already met their prior contractural obligations. In my mind, to do this would require a new engagement contract to spell out the obligations of the parties to the new contractual request. Hence, this is in fact a new "Assignment."
In my opinion the ASB screwed the pooch in not pointing this out correctly and only saying USPAP does not mandate a new assignment. They failed to point out a new assignment may not neccessarily mean a new appraisal has to be done. For example, a completion certificate request is a new assignment. They are making it sound like an "Assignment" is always an appraisal. Going back, after already having satisfied a prior engagement, to provide a service regarding new information desired by a client IS a new assignment and a new engagement contract should be created for it. Hence, a fee is owed for the additional work not agreed to in the prior engagement contract.
The people answering these FAQ's need to expect all of us to want to actually run profitable businesses once in awhile versus being charities.
Webbed.
P.S. Look in the Definitions Section of USPAP. The definition of "Assignment" does not equal, or point to, the definition of "Appraisal." An assignment is a valuation service provided as a consequence of an agreement between an appraiser and a client. I think the difference between an "Assignment" and "Assignment Results" has gotten confused here. Asking an appraiser to go back and "analyze and consider" a completely new sales contract that took place after some prior effective date is asking for consulting...... a new assignment. Besides that, what the ding dong are we "considering?" Now we no longer have an independent contract between two parties we are "considering." Now we are considering and analyzing a contract that has been expressly reframed with a contract price that makes a loan work based on our own real estate appraisal.
