Seller Complaint Relayed From Maryland Dllr

[Wayne Henry]

I can understand that government entities are over worked and under staffed but shouldn't there be a filter for complaints. Writing complaints takes time and causes stress on our practice. The complaint at the very least should come from the client and not a biased party without standing. Last week I received my second complaint in two years from the sellers end of a transaction. The complaint is full of false accusations and contains no sold comparables that I should have used (because there were none to select other than the ones I used). The seller called me everything from incompetent to falsely stating that I did not measure the third level of there home. To top it off I recall taking an extra 20 minutes to explain to them the appraisal process and that I have to use market area comparables to reconcile a value. I felt it was necessary to explain to them the appraisal process and answer all of there questions because I knew beforehand that there listing agent listed there property without justifiable sold comparable homes. Did they give me call to talk about it, sure did not, they go straight to the commission. To top it off the copy of the appraisal he sent to the commission was not the last signed report submitted to my client. So the report he was able to get his hands on was not the finalized report which contained specific reasoning why the comparables supplied for a value reconsideration were not used. It also contained answers to what appears to be a letter that came from him to me relayed through the lender/client, which specifically addressed the living area and comparable selection concerns. How does a complaint help his situation? Is it purely out of anger and spite? I know we shouldn't take it personally but with this case and the one last year I just do not see the purpose. I do not get the reasoning behind this. After this is resolved should I call him to try to figure out the reasoning behind this to maybe prevent this from happening in the future. I thought I did what I could in this case to answer any concerns during the visual observation. I am at a loss on this one. Do any of you blacklist listing agents that send complaints to the commission in an effort to get you in some type of trouble? I am curious how my colleagues handle this (by the way the listing agent never showed up during my visit. I conducted my observation with the sellers). I have never had a repeat offender, meaning, had to do a real estate transaction for a listing agent that previously filed a complaint against me (or had something to do with the complaint, which I believe is the case with this transaction). How would you handle this? I believe the seller or a listing agent does not have standing in this matter. I reached out to my actual client, in this case, the AMC and lender for a letter stating my report was satisfactory. I will update the thread and let you all know how it goes. Have a great week.

 

[factsandtruth]

On a side note, this is one of the reasons why I make it a point to charge as much as possible on every appraisal. No discounts....

 

[BRCJR]

............................................. Did they give me call to talk about it, sure did not, they go straight to the commission. ......................................................................................

You talking about your appraisal to the seller? Could you do that if they just called you up?

 

[Mike Kennedy]

Consult an Attorney with considerable expertise in your State's Administrative (including Appraisal) Law. DO NOT discuss the complaints in PUBLIC (including here - public media posts can be found during Discovery). NOTIFY your E&O carrier - immediately (if not already done).

 

[Michael S]

New Mexico's Real Estate Appraiser board actually implemented a process to weed out obviously baseless complaints. In many cases the appraiser will never know someone actually submitted a complaint because a committee reviews it at the beginning of the process and dismisses it if there's no merit i.e. the appraiser smelled bad and his car was dirty (actual complaint per a long time member of the board).

After this process is over (hopefully quickly and cheaply) you may want to talk to some members of your board about implementing a system similar to New Mexico's to weed out frivolous complaints that waste everyone's time.
http://www.rld.state.nm.us/boards/Real_Estate_Appraisers.aspx - Dean Zantow, SRA is the current head of the board and teaches a lot of USPAP classes. I believe he indicated that it took several years to finally get such a system in place as there was some red tape and possibly even minor changes to the administrative codes/laws.

 

[Wayne Henry]

Consult an Attorney with considerable expertise in your State's Administrative (including Appraisal) Law. DO NOT discuss the complaints in PUBLIC (including here - public media posts can be found during Discovery). NOTIFY your E&O carrier - immediately (if not already done).

Thank you Mike Kennedy for your concern.
I was wondering if it would be of any interest to create a section in this forum for appraisers to voice there concern with listing agents that file complaints with the state. Similar to "Clients - Good Bad and Ugly" but pertaining to listing agents. The Voice of appraisals show stated that more and more listing agents are filing complaints with the state boards to put pressure on appraisers and I believe we should have a way of connecting to one an other in order to give us an alert for those listing agents that list there properties for unsubstantiated prices then file complaints on appraisers. This will at the least allow appraisers to have the opportunity to turn down an assignment from a flagged listing agent if they do the preliminary research and notice that the list price is not market justified. I am not sure how the laws work when it comes to this but since we voice our opinions with bad AMC's on here I do not see why we could not get a list started which has listing agents that are taking part in this practice. Seeming that they are not the client should be enough to dismiss claims against an appraiser, but the time it takes to answer a complaint is exhausting not to mention the stress involved. I am interested in your take on this.

 

[CindyR]

To top it off the copy of the appraisal he sent to the commission was not the last signed report submitted to my client. So the report he was able to get his hands on was not the finalized report which contained specific reasoning why the comparables supplied for a value reconsideration were not used. .

How can anyone, especially a seller, have a preliminary copy of your report???? There may be a reason for a draft report under some specific assignment conditions but certainly not for a plain old sale transaction through an AMC lender.

 

[Mike Kennedy]

Thank you Mike Kennedy for your concern.
I was wondering if it would be of any interest to create a section in this forum for appraisers to voice there concern with listing agents that file complaints with the state. Similar to "Clients - Good Bad and Ugly" but pertaining to listing agents. The Voice of appraisals show stated that more and more listing agents are filing complaints with the state boards to put pressure on appraisers and I believe we should have a way of connecting to one an other in order to give us an alert for those listing agents that list there properties for unsubstantiated prices then file complaints on appraisers. This will at the least allow appraisers to have the opportunity to turn down an assignment from a flagged listing agent if they do the preliminary research and notice that the list price is not market justified. I am not sure how the laws work when it comes to this but since we voice our opinions with bad AMC's on here I do not see why we could not get a list started which has listing agents that are taking part in this practice. Seeming that they are not the client should be enough to dismiss claims against an appraiser, but the time it takes to answer a complaint is exhausting not to mention the stress involved. I am interested in your take on this.

Suggest you contact Wayne and get his take about starting a Thread Discussion on that topic in the Maryland sub-forum.

 

[TJSum]

Most agents who over list properties as the norm usually weed themselves out of the business because they waste too much money on listings that won't sell.

 

[Wayne Henry]

Most agents who over list properties as the norm usually weed themselves out of the business because they waste too much money on listings that won't sell.

This is true but those that take the next step to file a complaint to the state I believe go beyond the scale. I wouldn't be surprised if this were an intentional practice by a few bad apples.