Updated 1-30-13 to add information about subsidiary ES Appraisal Services. $9,349,612.97 + $1,698,799 = $11,048,411.97. That’s how much failed Evaluation Solutions and its subsidiary entity ES Appraisal Services have left in combined unpaid appraisal and BPO fees owed to appraisers and agents/brokers — according to their respective bankruptcy filings Read more…
Update note 8/14/12: this case, particularly the plaintiffs’ attempt to create a defendant class of appraisers, presents significant new liability issues for appraisal management and appraisers. I will address the liability issues in this case and in other current AMC litigation (including the FDIC’s actions against two national AMCs) in Read more…
Update on the update: May 19, 2012 – in the last week, the FDIC sued approximately 20 more appraisers as the receiver for BankUnited in a last-minute rush to file the actions before the deadline for its negligence claims relating to that failed bank. The appraisers affected by these new Read more…
Judge Carter ruled yesterday on eAppraiseIT’s motions attacking the FDIC’s First Amended Complaint in the lawsuit filed by the FDIC against CoreLogic/eAppraiseIT and their various affiliates on May 9, 2011. eAppraiseIT’s Motion to Dismiss Count I — Breach of Contract Relating to Appraisals Delivered Prior to Signing of Formal Written Read more…
In March of this year, the FDIC sued Washington Mutual’s former CEO Kerry Killinger, its former chief operating officer Stephen Rotella and its former head of residential lending David Schneider for $900 million in alleged damages resulting from their “gross negligence” in running WaMu’s residential lending business. The FDIC claimed Read more…
In the two weeks leading up to Thanksgiving Day, the FDIC sued 29 individual residential appraisers and a rafter of mortgage brokers in 12 separate lawsuits. All of the appraisers sued in this round reside in California — in the last three years, the FDIC has so far sued a Read more…
In an opinion published today concerning the 2007 lawsuit filed by then Attorney General Cuomo against First American Corporation and its former appraisal management company eAppraiseIT, New York state’s highest court — its Court of Appeals — has ruled that the trial court properly denied eAppraiseIT’s motion to dismiss. In Read more…
Caption of 11-14-11 Order In a November 14 ruling in the FDIC’s lawsuit against CoreLogic and its various subsidiaries, Judge Carter dismissed the FDIC’s gross negligence claim (with leave for the FDIC to amend) based on the economic loss rule for the same reasons he previously dismissed the FDIC’s similar Read more…
Today, four years after New York’s then Attorney General Cuomo filed his state’s lawsuit against First American eAppraiseIT (now part of CoreLogic), the New York Court of Appeals (the state’s highest court) heard eAppraiseIT’s appeal of the trial court’s denial of its motion to dismiss. eAppraiseIT’s argument on appeal, as Read more…
Appraisal management companies (AMCs) — and individual appraisers themselves — have avoided the brunt of mortgage-related litigation and losses stemming from the lending crisis. Both AMCs and appraisers have not been forced to defend against 98%+ of the potential liability claims that lenders might have tried to press about allegedly Read more…