Scope of Work

[heidiwoods]

Does anyone have an explination of Scope of Work in your appraisal reports that is accepted by Fannie Mae? We've thought about copying what the new GPAR report has under Scope of Work, Assumptions and Limiting Conditions, it's a good explination, but not sure if will be accepted by Fannie Mae? Any suggestions?

 

[Mike Kennedy]

Heidi, GPAR is for non-fannie related assignments which must be completed on Fannie Forms. see other posts on here ....."search fannie mae forms"

 

[Brad Ellis]

Heidi,

The Fannie forms- to be used for work that is intended to be Fannie compliant- has the scope of work built right in. No modifications are allowed.

The only modification Fannie allows is the specific wording that they agreed to with the AI as regards Intended users.

If you have a non-Fannie assignment you can easily use the old forms and certs and they can be modified in pretty much anyway you see fit.

Brad

 

[Anthem]

Heidi,

The Fannie forms- to be used for work that is intended to be Fannie compliant- has the scope of work built right in. No modifications are allowed.

The only modification Fannie allows is the specific wording that they agreed to with the AI as regards Intended users.

If you have a non-Fannie assignment you can easily use the old forms and certs and they can be modified in pretty much anyway you see fit.

Brad

Brad you are allowed to expand your scope of work, they cannot stop us from doing that... especially with the New USPAP approaching. They only allow the released wording in regards to Cert. 23. The SOW in the form is a minimum requirement of what the appraiser must do.

I have completed around 500 Fannie Mae Reports on the New form with a detailed SOW.... no problems here. Of course most stuff doesn't actually hit Fannie for a long time.

 

[George Hatch]

If all you're going to do is use the "Fannie approved" paragraph you might as well not bother. It's as meaningless and contradictory as the verbiage on the form and the way it's written it does nothing to clarify the scope of work or the intended users/intended uses as required in USPAP.

Fannie clearly intends for a large number of unidentified users to use the appraisal report for a number of unidentified uses. They refuse to identify the users or their uses or how an appraiser can adequately prepare a single workproduct to meet those different and sometimes conflicting uses. Regardless of how many times we point that out they have chosen to stonewall everyone, pretend their intentions are other than as demonstrated in their forms and in general just throw their weight around. As far as I'm concerned Fannie has deliberately chosen to be deceitful and is working solely in their own interests to the exclusion of everyone else, especially the appraisers.

Fannie's verbiage and all of their explanations for that verbiage are in conflict with USPAP and everyone who chooses to "rely upon" the forms and their meaningless paragraph might as well recognize that right up front. You either choose to clarify your scope of work and your intended users/intended uses to comply with USPAP or you don't - there is no half way measure. You might as well just make your choice and be prepared to live with it.

 

[Don Clark]

Agreed

George,

I agree, and, so far, my scope of work is well over 1 legal size in length. It contains the certification required by USPAP, detailed information on the scope of work SPECIFIC to the current assignment, information relative to my attempts to collect, verify and analyse data, the sources of that data, and information relevant to current market conditions specific to my market and the subject property.

Fannie can like it or not, that is what i believe is required by USPAP as well as the SOW Rule.

 

[Ross (CO)]

Ditto Don !.......and yet I would still wager that MOST ALL of us are in NO WAY receiving assignment orders (requiring our reporting on the new forms) whereby our immediate client has the knowledge or fortitude to clearly state that the report IS DESTINED for Fannie. Some time ago I thought that an order NOT stating such......allowed one to simply use the old form. Well, that never seemed to fly, at least if some sort of mortgage product was the purpose/use of our doing a report.

I have not accepted that one MUST use this certain selectly-provided text paragraph for their mention of Intended User, etc. I offer the same general thoughts as that paragraph provides......but I take full liberty to also offer "supplementation and clarification" where it is deemed appropriate and necessary to enable my client and any other reader (before reaching Fannie's doorstep) to understand what was done, to what extent, with explanation, for whom, and under what conditions at the time the assignment was initiated.

No one has barked and howled about (not) having only this certain gilded Fannie-text paragraph in a report I have given. After all......those guys have not even created an updated Selling Guide yet to accompany their new forms ! How lame, irresponsible, and deceitful.....in light of the magnitude of the turmoil and discussion generated by appraisers and many of their intermediary clients over all this recent time.

 

[George Hatch]

I have come to believe that Fannie's failure to provide an updated appraisal policy is neither an accident nor an oversight. I think they know that once they formally commit these policies to their selling guide that they will have painted themselves into an obviously indefensible position. That position will be disassembled by the first E&O attorney who argues the case in court. All that attorney has to do to research their argument is do a search on this forum and hit the print button - it's all here.

I think Fannie is playing a waiting game and hoping that the common usage of the forms for a couple years will establish some sort of precedence of reasonableness. It won't, of course, because the conflicts were pointed out before the forms came online and have been routinely and uniformly criticized by everyone since then.

 

[Lycabull]

Taf

I also agree with Don. My SOW and explanation of cert #23 go well beyond the worthless paragraph provided by Fannie. By the time I'm done explaning cert #23 in my reports, even someone as dull as Fannie should be able to understand what I meant it to mean!

Don't like it? Give me a form to use that isn't misleading to start with.

http://www.appraisalfoundation.org/s_appraisal/bin.asp?CID=12&DID=637&DOC=FILE.PDF

 

[Marcia Langley]

I have come to believe that Fannie's failure to provide an updated appraisal policy is neither an accident nor an oversight.

I agree. The controversy with the new Fannie mae forms started with their initial draft, continued through revision and release, and has continued unabated until now. Fannie Mae started out trying to buck USPAP and nothing has been resolved, yet.