Remove Negative Remarks About the Client

[c w d]

Our industry needs to seriously put the brakes on a lot of this by limiting any amount of after the fact work requests in the original engagement agreements in the first place. If these *******s understood and had already agreed they were going to have to pay for this stuff of demanding research of invalid sales data, unreasonable extra comps, on and on, they'd knock this crap off. Such as it's the lender's job to respond to their borrowers, not ours. If they want us responding to unreasonable or misinformed borrowers they should expect to have to pay for the services.

I agree with your statements.

 

[Drew Barnes (Illinois)]

It would have been wise to insist on a written contract about that if you were not going to insist on payment in advance.

QUOTE]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the e-mail requesting a detailed response to the borrowers concerns as good as a written contract??? (which by the was was added to the report to detail the extent of the request and the scope of work for the "new assignment")

They contacted me and requested me to spend my time, money , and education on a problem that they had.

I'm no attorney, but I think it would hold up in court.

 

[Alison Swain]

Not for free yet... I sent a detailed bill (attached to the report) for $1236.77.

$1,236.77? Damn, you're good! I'm lucky to calculate my efforts within $25.







.

 

[PropertyEconomics]

$1,236.77? Damn, you're good! I'm lucky to calculate my efforts within $25.







.

Alison .. some people have to pay gross receipts tax on their services. Just my guess. The appraiser might not be that good .. but the government is when they carry out gross receipts taxes to the .0000 decimal place.

 

[JSmith43]

Webbed is right about drawing the line. The trick is to do it diplomatically.

Throwing the "F" bomb into a printed response did not serve a purpose & soiled your diligent efforts. But, It is understandable frustration.

Your dissection of the reality and Rex's example are ways to deal with these things. But, there is the matter of compensation.

The lender should say " Do you mind helping us beta test/debug our automated underwriting of an AVM for free? Something like that. I think that is probably what they are expecting.


They may be thinking (we know our AVM is $hi#, but we sold it as a safeguard to investors and now we have to act tough in it's defense & consideration of it's output).

 

[TC]

Never say fraud.


TC

 

[Webbed Feet]

<...... snip.....>
I'm no attorney, but I think it would hold up in court.

I think it sure sounds like you went to a great deal of hard work and deserve to get paid. I am also not a lawyer, but I have to ask right off where was the meeting of the minds regarding an extra almost $1,300 fee? You started out with a flat fee and ended with a satisfied contract right? Then committed to a request with no disclosure of any fee agreement or alteration to a per hour basis after a flat fee just before. I wish you luck in court. You can claim an implied contract, but what are the terms of it? Not the best way to have approached it not meeting the matter head on in the first place and just sending an invoice instead. My prediction? This AMC is going to ignore your invoice and you will in fact have to sue them trying to get paid anything at all. I hope my prediction is incorrect, I would like to see you get paid.



Webbed.

 

[Caterina Platt]

Uh oh. AMC's are famous for this behavior. It's called a Reconsideration of Value. They expect this all for free. It's utter nonsense 99% of the time. They get a Real it ore to pull them some sales that make the magic number seem plausible or use the old AVM and start in with thier 'but what abouts.....'

The AMC's I work with will often say 'just respond in a brief paragraph if you think these sales don't work for whatever reason.' In other words, don't break your neck on this if it isn't there as we all know this is an expected freebie in the name of customer service.

This outfit, on the other hand, expected you to specifically address each of the ranting homeowner's points line by line and their AVM comps. That's a lot more pushy and implies that Mr. Appraiser's time is far less important than Mr. Homeowner over there in the corner throwing a righteous tantrum. I'd go ahead and push for compensation, but next time, do indeed get that approved up front.

 

[Richard Carlsen]

"Mr Client,

You requested consideration of additional sales plus response to specific questions posed by the borrowers.

#1. A brief check of authoritative sources indicates that the sales prices of the suggested sales are erroneous. Full research and verification of all sales data requested will involve the expenditure of significant time. However, research into additional sales is not considered necessary as the sales included in the report are deemed by me, the author of the report, to be adequate to reasonably estimate subject's Market Value as defined. Any additional work involved with evaluation and verification of these additional sales will be based on a modification to the original assignment with an additional cost. If you wish me to proceed, please send me a modified assignment request.

#2. Since the borrower is not my client, but is in fact, an interested party to the lending process who would benefit from influencing me to generate a higher opinion of value, I consider any discussion or request for direct communication or justification of my analysis as an attempt to influence the integrity of my analysis and to raise my opinion of value. I respectfully decline to enter into such a dialog for obvious ethical and legal reasons.

I will be happy to discuss verbally any questions that your underwriter or review appraiser may ask.

Regards

Appraiser"

 

[Bama Bayou]

Mr appraiser, please comment on why the AVM value is so much higher than yours.

Mr UW, the AVM has a different opinion of value than I do. Why that is so, well, I don't know. Perhaps they are "tweaking the model". However, this is a black box AVM so no one knows what it is really doing except the code writers, and they are not saying.

Maybe you should ask the AVM to go to the subject property and perform a full interior/exterior inspection like I did.

I did a test on Zillow about a month ago and they were on average about 50% off. Of 150 closed sales Zillow was low on two of them and high on the other 148.

I'm getting ready to write an article on the consistenly incorrect values produced by some AVMs and hopefully have it published. An AVM can be just as biased as a crooked appraiser, and I have personal knowledge of that.