LO Sends E-Mail this afternoon I have questions.

[lizhorvath]

Why only $250? Seems cheap, especially for one that's a little bit away...

 

[Webbed Feet]

Well, it all depends on the scope. Did the new client request an appraisal with the effective date that is the same date as the old one, or a new effective date? .........................<snip>

Mr. Grundvig,

I love to harp on this one. You need to read SMT-3 a few times. I just love how so many posters keep making using an old effective date for a different clients engagement sound completely simple. When it fact it is not.

Webbed.

 

[Webbed Feet]

Sleeping on it last night. You have a good point. I had already wrote off the fee. They are on my A-Hole list. Its a new year, time to wean the egg suckers. To many appraisers bend over in the name of service. So the lenders just go on and keep pulling this crap. I say let there pet appraiser come up and do it.

Mr. Miller! Mr. Miller!

No no no no no!.....

What you do is play along... be really sweet and nice.... tell them you'd be all too happy to comply with their needs! Just as soon as they pay for your prior services the LO abused you with doing, did not inform you of any cancelation of, and then refused to pay for when you called about the promised check not arriving.

Then right after you get paid on that make sure you send them that report..so that you've fully completed your part of the engagement. No changes. THEN tell them to stick any more services where the sun doesn't shine!

Webbed.

 

[Lee Lansford]

Well, it all depends on the scope. Did the new client request an appraisal with the effective date that is the same date as the old one, or a new effective date? If it's a new date, then you most certainly have to go back out to the home and check current sales. If the client requested an opinion of value based on the same date as the prior report, then you do not have to revist the subject because you already observed it as of the effective date defined by your client. But, you will have to drive the new comps. That is, if there are any additional comps as of the date of opinion requested by the client...

A word of general advice regarding accepting an assignment where the effective date of the new appraisal will be the same as the prior (in this instance, I believe, 2 months ago) effective date:
If there have been changes in the market that require updating (revision) and new current analysis if the effective date were today vs. 2 months ago and if there is any chance the opinion of value might be different today vs. 2 months ago, the appraiser would NOT want to communicate today an appraisal with the old effective date.

 

[Diego Lopez]

Ray,

It is unlikely a corporate check will bounce, so you should be in good shape.

Dave, here in my neck of the woods, corporate checks (from mortgage companies) bounce more than a basketball. The best bet I think is credit card or cash up front.

 

[CURT VAN HOOSER]

Happy New Year Ray!

I agree with Greg to a point. Why play with these a'holes? Then again, you could tell them you will accept a new assignment at your standard fee, plus $138 travel($0.46 per mile), plus the the $250 for the unpaid report(assuming you completed it). This is the cost of doing business now. Let them decide. Hell, if you're going to fire them anyway, why not get the gold watch first?

 

[xmtpedprl]

Diego,

You may be 100% correct, but have yet, in years of accepting them, have a corporate check bounce. Luck? Perhaps.

As for credit cards? We take 'em, but man, people DISPUTE them all the time, especially when they don't 'do the deal' with a specific firm.

Then I have to HANDWRITTEN the rebuttal, explain it to a 3rd party in ways that cannot be misunderstood, and hope for the charge to be reversed my way.

There is only one perfect means - CASH. Unless it's counterfeit!!

;^)

Dave...

 

[Webbed Feet]

To All,

Getting paid. I keep posting and posting. You all need to create a contract that you require any homeowner/borrower, that is paying, to sign before you proceed.

You place in the contract agreement that if their payment should fail for ANY reason the exact damages they agree they owe you. Where the litigation will take place, and they agree to be liable for all legal costs of collection. Make the damages worth your while. IInclude a contracted right to lien the real estate. Make it nasty, and all in your favor.

So be proactive. It will drastically reduce payment issues.

Webbed.

 

[xmtpedprl]

We do, and it doesn't.

You can, in fact, contest a credit card transaction for any reason whatsoever, and force a poor schmuck like me into sending several dozen pages of garbage, along with a handwritten testimony of the events, in order to sort it all out. (They always want *every* page* of the report, with the 'case number' hand written on *every* page, for which I need my client's permission in the first place!!)

And, as always, I win. However, it's aggravating as all get out to keep winning, that's for sure.

I guess the upside is that I have (no joking here) never lost a credit card transaction dispute, but one wonders how it is with the back-up we have that any owner in their right mind would even bother with it in the first place. Every owner knows what we have, yet they STILL put forth the dispute.

Frustrating.

Dave...

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I'd handle it this way....

Would you like to buy a vowel?