<span style='color:darkblue'>Terry,
Historically, few have viewed the past North Carolina Appraisal Board (p-NCAB) as being particularly exemplary regarding the propriety of their rule changes, which includes: the substance of their rule changes, the methods of their rule changes, the frequency of their rule changes, or the communication of their rule changes. They have left much to be desired.
With more enlightened members either now in place or soon to be in place, we anticipate significant improvement all the way around. However, perhaps ironically but not surprisingly, some of this improvement may include a small flurry of necessary rule changes to "undo" several ill-conceived or inadequate rule changes accumulated over the half decade or so during the period this state board has been so poorly operated and managed.
Actually, the very last noxious crock of unfettered Good-Ol'-Boy (GOB) Rule Changes have just recently cleared the pipeline, and were aired at last month's NCAB board meeting at a public "Rule Change Hearing" prior to their being slam dunked as official state law (anticipated later this month).
The uninitiated my assume such proposed rules, subject to the pubic hearing as mandated by state law, might have been made public by way of the p-NCAB's website at:
http://ncappraisalboard.org
Fat chance. The initiated know much better. If I have missed it anywhere on the site, I hope someone will let me know. I did not look long for it on their site as I know that to be a waste of time. If this post on AppraisersForum now encourages the posting of the proposed rules for the state's appraisers for the first time, please note the date and time of this posting here to determine which came first. I may post them myself on Boardwatch later on, and also the Written Submitted Comments from the North Carolina Chapter of the National Association of Realtors' Appraisal Section as authored by their chairman, David Reitzel. His written comment letter is mentioned to follow but is not immediately available to me for posting here. (Of course, the Appraisal Section of the NC NAR was very much NOT in favor of the proposed changes.)
I digitally recorded the public speakers at that public meeting and also transcribed the recording. You will see that all speakers,
except for the representative of the NCAB staff, were very much against most or all of the proposed changes -- and for real good reasons as have been cited recently in other threads on the NCAB in this sub-forum.
Here is the
Wave File if you have speakers on your computer. If not, a pair of head phones plugged into your computer often works even better. Give it time to download as it is almost 12 minutes long and could take as much as 20 to 30 minutes depending on your connection speed. You can then minimize the player and read the transcription as you listen to the speakers. (Microsoft's free player is pretty hard to beat and can be downloaded for free from their website.)
www.boardwatch.org/RuleChangeSpeakers.wav
Here is my transcription of this recent event. As yet, to my knowledge, there have been no decision by the Board regarding the proposed changes:
________________________________
RECENT NCAB RULE CHANGE HEARING SPEAKERS</span>
Tom Hildebrandt (first few words of speech missing from recording):
<span style='color:darkblue'>...Specific problems with that except that I would like for the board rather than having the national USPAP fifteen hour course be part of R-3, I would prefer to see that be a separate requirement and have the fifteen hours that would be part of the R-3 course be devoted to additional instruction.
I think most of the board members will agree that many of our students / our trainees need additional time in constructive concepts. Since there is already course work in place for the fifteen hour course, that's the national school, the national course, that will give the instructor at the R-3 level additional time to devote to methods, techniques, [for] those types of issues.
I think it would also have a second effect, it would also make the scheduling for the students to get the certified instructors to teach those courses -- it would be better received and make for better scheduling for those folks.
The other issues, I would like to sort of mirror what Mr. Reitzel's comments were. The requirement for instructors to provide sample reports, I see serving no real useful purpose.
An instructor's goal is not writing a report, or his ability to write the reports, would not necessarily have a reflection on his ability to teach. The board already has the right to review any appraiser's work files.
If they choose to want to look at the work product for a given instructor, they already have that right. I see this as a rule that is just superfluous.
On the issue of "Letters of Inquiry" from either board counsel or from a staff investigator or originated from the board, and again, at the moment you have the right to go to look at the work file of an appraiser whose been subject to a complaint, you have the right to investigate any issues that involve issues of character, you already have that right.
The requirement to impose on the appraiser, the licensee, to respond in fourteen days is, I think, a little bit disingenuous. It is very possible that an appraiser could be out of country or taking a vacation for more than fourteen days, and this would be one more on a list of violations of your rules, and in theory it could be argued by an aggressive counsel that his license should be taken for failure to respond.
I grant you that in that case, it could be argued with some discretion, it would not come to pass, but I am not so certain that would be the case. It's just not a rule I think that needs to be enacted. And the follow on to that is where the staff can request any documents that they wish is clearly an over stretch of the authority of the board.
You have a right to come and look at work files as you may wish but to request any document that the board may feel to be a subject of inquiry is a matter to be determined by law, and not by the arbitrary desecration of some board or staff member.
So I would urge you to specifically strike that. You already have sufficient authority to ask for a response. And that concludes my comments. Thank you.</span>
Acting Chairman Vance Thompson:
Thank you, Mr. Hildebrandt. Someone else wish to speak?
David C. Johnson:
Yes, What I'd like to do -- David Johnson--
Acting Chairman Vance Thompson:
Excuse me. State your --
David C. Johnson:
-- sure, North Carolina state-certified general real estate appraiser -- is second Mr. Hildebrandt's comments and David Reitzel's comments. That will be it.
Acting Chairman Vance Thompson:
Thank you. Someone else wish to speak?
Doug Winner:
<span style='color:darkblue'>I'm Doug Winner, I am a real estate instructor, appraiser instructor as well, licensing and certification. Fortunately, I'm a now an AQB instructor as well. Proud of that.
The thing about having the instructor put forth a copy of his reports to be reviewed by the board for approval as an instructor, one of the problems we have now -- I'm not in favor of that at all -- because one of the problems we have now is that we don't have enough instructors. Its very difficult to get "G" instructors as it is. "G" appraisers [instructors] can't afford to teach.
Another problem with it that I see is you are going to reduce your pool of qualified instructors. It puts the instructor in the position of saying "why should I bother with this?" It's hard enough to get them motivated to do it as it is. You have the control over the instructor to begin with.
You're going to review his credentials, you are going to review his work, you have already approved him as a general appraiser in order to teach general for instance, you have already qualified him, and its almost insulting to the instructor to say: "OK, yes, you are good enough to be a general appraiser, but to be an instructor, let's go look at that thing again.
And it gets politics into what should be an educational process. The end in this case is what's important. You look at the pass/fail ratio of the students of the particular instructor, you judge that instructor as well as the school or the venue in which he's teaching. And so you already have a control over the quality of the instruction.
And the student himself, for him to pass that state exam and to move forward in the appraisal profession has to get the knowledge, has to learn the material, and he needs qualified instructors to do that. You have provisions to approve "G" courses and "R" courses by the Institute.
Are you now going to require that the Institute instructors send you copy of their reports before you are going to approve the Institute and their corresponding courses, or is it just to North Carolina appraisers that have to meet this level of instructors, but it's OK for instructors teaching for the Institute and for other venues to do it anyway they want to and you will just accept them under a blanket thing.
So I think it's kind of an onerous provision and I am very strongly against that. Most of your "G" instructors are this close to saying "Not any more." And I think you are going to tip the balance as far as having sufficient instructors.
We are now going to AQB instructors required in order to do the R-3 courses, of course, you've got to have AQB instructors in order to do the Continuing Ed courses for the requirement every two years. Many of you attended the AQB course.
Not all of you, not all of those that attended that course passed the AQB exam. It's very hard to get, it's going to be very difficult for you to get qualified instructors. And I think you are just piling it on a little strong.
I do not think you gain any benefit or increase the quality of the instructor at all. You can measure the quality by the results. By the pass/fail ratio by the school or the instructor and the performance of those students in the field. Thank you.</span>
Acting Chairman Vance Thompson:
Thank you. Anyone else like to address this issue, these issues? Somebody else from the general public who would like to speak? OK, does the staff have any comments.
NCAB Executive Director Mel Black:
<span style='color:darkblue'>Mr. Chairman and members of the board, Mel Black, executive director of the North Carolina appraisal board. I am here to deliver the staff's comments on the proposed changes to the board's administrative rules.
The staff has thoroughly reviewed these changes over the last several weeks and we have reviewed them again in light of the written comments that have been received, and in addition today, we have heard comments on the particular rule of .0306, part "G" that adds the board's ability to request appraiser samples of instructors.
I am not prepared to present information on this but I will now that it seems that it is an issue. The reason that this is a good idea for the board is to help the board evaluate applicants who wish to be instructors.
If you'll look at part A-2 of the rules, there's a fraction in there that says that an individual must have at least one-third of their experience in income property appraising, and very often the board staff receives applications and its very difficult to look at an individual's experience without having a chance to see a copy of a report, or look at an experience log.
In addition the rule does grant the board some discretion in finding equivalent approval, and I know that there was some discussion earlier on comment about there not being enough instructors. I think this board has tried to fairly evaluate applicants and try to approve applicants where there is enough qualification criteria there.
We would like to be able to get reports in an effort to find the equivalents to the particular rules in parts A1, 2, and 3. And that's the purpose of that part of the rule. In closing, the staff recommends that the board adopt the changes as published. Thank you.</span>
Acting Chairman Vance Thompson:
Thank you for your remarks from each of you. And thank you, Mr. Black for your summation for the staff. If approved by the board, the proposed rules will become effective on July 1, 2003.
The record of this proceedings will be available for public inspections at the board's offices during regular business hours. The board will consider the comments made today as well as written comments and will in due time render a decision on the proposed rule making action.
Members of the board and I would like to thank all of you for your attendance at this proceeding. This hearing is now concluded.
