Mutual First Cases, 5-1-14 to Present Some appraisers are now being targeted in lawsuits by entities named “Mutual First, LLC” and “First Mutual Group LP.” So far, they are behind the filing of about 40 lawsuits within the last year. They are not banks, credit unions or any kind of regular financial institutions. They are investment entities aiming to make money Read more
Call this one a loss for the FDIC. In May 2011, the Federal Deposition Insurance Corporation filed suit against CoreLogic Valuation Services, formerly known as eAppraiseIT, in connection with appraisal services managed by eAppraiseIT for failed lender Washington Mutual. The FDIC’s lawsuit at that time concerned 194 allegedly flawed appraisals (mainly, Read more
Updated from an earlier post. On September 5, 2013, in a professional negligence case against two Colorado appraisers by the FDIC, a federal court ruled on an issue concerning USPAP confidentiality. It was a simple issue, but it’s one of the very few court decisions relating to USPAP’s poorly written confidentiality Read more
Updated on 11/22/13. On November 14 and 18, Navigators Insurance Company sued three more appraisers to enforce “regulatory claims” exclusions in the E&O policies they purchased. These appraisers are in California and Nevada. Like the appraiser sued by Navigators in Florida on November 6, the new appraisers are being sued by the Read more
Update: Navigators has sued three more appraisers to deny coverage under the same “regulatory claims” exclusion discussed in the post below. The more recent lawsuits are discussed in this later post. Yesterday, appraiser E&O provider Navigators Insurance Company filed a lawsuit in Florida against one of its own insured appraisers. In Read more
Update: Heritage Pacific Financial filed for bankruptcy in January 2014. For information about a new litigation venture against appraisers by some of its former management, please see this newer post here.These are four of the parties who have been suing the most appraisers in 2011-12. I suspect most appraisers won’t Read more
The New York Attorney General’s Office has announced reaching a settlement with CoreLogic, as successor to eAppraiseIT, over the 2007 lawsuit filed against eAppraiseIT by then-Attorney General Cuomo. This was the case, of course, that led to the HVCC with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It also put the AMC Read more
In the last three months, since May 1, 2012, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has sued 45 individual appraisers and appraisal firms in its capacity as receiver for one of the failed banks or lending institutions under its supervision. The appraisers targeted by the FDIC in its recent cases 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
Can chief appraisers and other managerial appraisers at banks be sued for failing to fulfill their responsibilities with regard to oversight of the bank’s appraisal functions? Yes, they can and have been sued. The types of actions they have been named in range from fraud actions by private plaintiffs, to Read more