The FDIC continues to prove itself as the biggest current threat to appraisers and appraising. Since January 1, 2010, the FDIC has filed 60 lawsuits as a plaintiff in federal court in connection with its receivership of failed banks. This Read more
I don’t think it should come as a genuine surprise to most people familiar with the field, but yesterday a New York appellate court affirmed the trial court’s decision denying First American Corp. and First American eAppraiseIt’s (now part of Read more
This is the first of a series of articles that will discuss valuation liability issues which either do not stem from true appraisals or affect parties besides appraisers. Appraisers are by no means the only parties targeted for valuation liability Read more
First American CoreLogic — currently a subsidiary of First American Corp. in Santa Ana, CA but soon to be an independent company under the name CoreLogic — has filed a lawsuit against a number of appraisal management and technology companies: Read more
On March 31, 2010, Judge Virginia Phillips in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California dismissed eight homeowner/borrower class actions against home builders and their affiliated mortgage companies. Filed on the same day by the same group Read more
Many appraisers call and write us with regard to the hardships caused by being blacklisted by a lender. Some appraisers want to know if filing a lawsuit would fix their problem — either with a court order or monetary damages. Read more
Commercial appraisers are more likely than residential appraisers to be in the position of considering whether to sue a client for unpaid appraisal fees because their fees for a single engagement are higher, sometimes $10,000 or more. Residential appraisers, however, Read more
In November, Appraiser Law Blog reported about “rotten reviews” being used by mortgage insurance companies to deny mortgage insurance claims by lenders. The reason I wrote about the issue was that in some cases, mortgage insurers’ and other parties’ usage Read more
Here is a lender that is doing something right for appraisers (and itself). I wish more lenders would do things like this. As I’ve written elsewhere on Appraiser Law Blog, more than 50% of claims against appraisers are being filed Read more
Thanks largely to the ill-informed efforts of New York’s Attorney General and the HVCC, we are now witnessing more insidious and blatant attempts to manipulate appraisers than we saw during the height of the real estate bubble. Appraisers are being Read more