Issues With Talcb

[Brett Shelander]

Hello all,

I'm an appraiser trainee in Texas. I've accumulated over 3,500 hours in experience over the past 2.5 - 3 years. During the time the TALCB were auditing my 2 appraisals, they told me to go ahead and take my state exam. I passed it in July of 2016. About 2 weeks later, the TALCB rejected my appraisal logs because my supervisor and I hadn't been putting my name in the certification(nor was I signing each appraisal).

I quickly hired an attorney in Austin to try and help me take care of this situation. This fiasco went on for about 5 months, and in the beginning of December 2016, the TALCB ruled that I be allowed to leave my application open, and log another 1,000 hours. The biggest problem is that my supervisor retired from appraising as of August 1st 2016, leaving me with no one to work for and receive credit hours from.

I have since found an appraiser to train under, as of January 20th, 2017, but I've only done 5 total appraisals in the last month. This process is going too slow, and I'm ready to get this over with so I can go out and work on my own.

My questions are, have any of you ever heard of the TALCB and/or TREC doing this to a trainee? Also, do any of you have any ideas how I can expedite this process and get more hours at a faster pace? Like I said, I've passed my exam, and have fulfilled all other necessary requirements in order to become licensed.

I also have hours from September 2015 - June 2016 that I've never logged, because I had already accumulated the 2,000 required hours. I was thinking that I could go back, log these hours, and just say that all I did was measure, and maybe look up comps. This would mean that I didn't put "significant" work into each report, meaning I wouldn't be required to put my name in the certification of each report. I thought this could be a good and reasonable loophole, in order to get at least some credit for these hours that I've accumulated. If any of you have any thoughts on this, it would certainly help.

Any and all help would be much obliged.

Thanks!

 

[Michigan CG]

Go find someone who will let you work for free if you have to in order to get the required hours.

You could go find a CG and ask to work with them helping with appraisals as you most likely don't have to log all CR work.

 

[Mr Rex]

I suggest a USPAP refresher and a class on Supervisor/Trainee requirements in your state. You and your mentor are to blame for your dilemma, not the TALCB, and why an attorney was of no use. Sorry to be harsh, but it is what it is.

 

[Restrain]

Actually an attorney might just be your best bet. The TALCB is nit-picking. The result of their actions is a significant loss in income, extreme hardship (retired supervising appraiser), damages to your reputation, etc.

 

[JTip]

the TALCB rejected my appraisal logs because my supervisor and I hadn't been putting my name in the certification(nor was I signing each appraisal).

I bet there is something in your rules that states you must put either your signature -or- comment about your (name) contribution to the report.

What would you think looking over an appraisal with no indication of assistance and claiming you did 'most' of the work on it?

I agree with the Rex.

 

[Brett Shelander]

Thanks for the advice,

I've taken the 7 hour USPAP update, and at the time of me applying for my trainee license, there was no supervisor/trainee course offered or required. I have now taken that course because my trainee license expired and I had to re-up the license(which cost me another $500) in order to accumulate more hours.

I assumed that my supervisor knew what he was doing, since he was the one who's been a certified appraiser for the past 35+ years.

There is definitely something in the new USPAP rules about having a trainee's name in the certification, but when I took my original USPAP course in 2013, I never saw this rule mentioned anywhere.

 

[Brett Shelander]

I also thought the attorney would have helped a lot more than he did, but the best he could do was get my required experience hours knocked down from 2,000 to 1,000. That was the best deal he said he could get from the TALCB.

 

[JTip]

I assumed that my supervisor knew what he was doing, since he was the one who's been a certified appraiser for the past 35+ years.

The salty appraisers are the worst with keeping up with current rules/regs. I basically taught my supervisor everything about training someone and the rules/procedures involved.

There is definitely something in the new USPAP rules about having a trainee's name in the certification, but when I took my original USPAP course in 2013, I never saw this rule mentioned anywhere

USPAP has nothing to do with it. It's your STATE rules that apply as to how you comply with reporting trainee assistance. PA, back in the day, was simple; you place "Assistant to the State Certified Appraiser" in the signature box (this was years ago, but the current rule at the time) and disclose work on a separate state provided checklist.

but the best he could do was get my required experience hours knocked down from 2,000 to 1,000.

You are lucky you scored that. Well worth the attorney fee for sure.

 

[George Hatch]

I will be taking the hard line on this, so if you came here looking for that caring, sensitive, and nurturing thing you should skip my post altogether.


USPAP course or not, the material relating to the appropriate disclosures have been in USPAP (itself) for many years prior to your arrival. The ASB has also issued an Advisory Opinion on the subject, also years before you came along. Having personally taught the USPAP Updates for the 15+ years prior to your arrival, most of them using the official course materials from The Appraisal Foundation, I can tell you that the topic was included to one extent or another in most - if not all - of the Update courses after 2000. However many times your supervisor took that course before you came along they would have been directly exposed to this instruction because it is a big deal and it always has been.

That being the case I can only assume your supervisor conducted themself that way despite knowing better; and if you took any of the update courses you should have known better, too.


I haven't looked over the TX regulations, but in most states's regs that I have looked at there are requirements that appraisals claimed for experience credit must comply with USPAP.

Sorry, but this was an avoidable problem that was created by your supervisor and is NOT a matter of the TX board being picky. Whether you agree with the USPAP requirements on disclosure or not, they still represent the MINIMUM benchmark for conduct that we expect of every appraiser.

In every report your supervisor submitted that failed to note your contribution your clients received and used appraisal reports that were substandard in content, and dare I say - misleading as to who did what. Misleading, as in, either incompetent on your supervisor's part (if they actually didn't know) or unethical (if they did know but chose otherwise anyway).

Not only that, but in my experience most of the "supervisor" appraisers who don't mention the participation of their trainees in the reports are also using them unethically to inspect properties on their own and then fraudulently sign as if they did the inspection personally. And when I say "most" that's usually in excess of 90% of those supervisors. This practice is literally one of the most unethical things any appraiser can do in an assignment short of lying about the value and its a cancer in our profession.


So back to your situation and to echo what someone else already said, I think you lucked out and that the TX board cut you a huge break. I have seen other states completely reject all non-compliant work for experience credits before. In my opinion you should be sending the board a big Thank You note for going easy on you. Just the fact that you think it was unfair of the TX board to enforce their own regs can be considered indicative of your opinion of the legitimacy of both the requisite USPAP requirements on the matter as well as the TX Board's statutory obligation to enforce the state regs requiring compliance with those requirements.

 

[George Hatch]

Edit to add, in my opinion your best course of action from here is to go out and find the most reputable and honest supervisor you can find and anticipate the probability that they will probably be teaching you quite a bit about appraising that wasn't well covered in the appraisal courses and previous instruction you've already received. If you're in this profession for the long haul it will be well worth your time to associate with someone in the upper 15%. You'll get exposed to better clients, more interesting assignments and you'll be expanding your bag of tricks.