Jan 18, 2008

Appraiser Representation

Yesterday I attended one of the monthly meetings of the Arizona Board of Appraisal which was open to the public. The mission of the board is to promote quality real estate appraisal in Arizona that protects the health, safety and welfare of the public. It also acts as a disciplinary body to ensure conformity with the statutes, rules and regulations governing the board.

While the meeting itself may appear somewhat mundane to members of the public, the procedures and agenda topics (cases, item numbers) do provide an insight to the state of the appraisal profession. Although the meetings are open to the public, the Board may go into Executive Session at which time the public may not attend.

Most items on the agenda were carried over from previous meetings and covered the usual monthly items: applications accepted/declined, continuing education classes approved/disapproved, motions (for investigation, informal hearing, formal hearing), informal complaint hearings, and complaint reviews. The complaint hearings and reviews are the “meat items” to find out what is happening in the world of Real Estate Appraisals.

There are two types of compalints – Board complaints and Out Side complaints. Board complaints usually occur from something revealed during a review or investigation by the Board, and may or may not be related to the initial purpose of the review or investigation. Outside complaints are filed by the public.

In yesterday's meeting, the outside complaints were pretty much the usual: values too low, values too high, used wrong comparables. There were, however, a few different complaints.

They included: appraised the wrong parcel of land, wrong appraisal form used, appraiser signed report using another appraiser's license infor, trainee accepting assignments from own clients, and signing reports with supervising appraiser's electronic signature, without their consent or knowledge, supervising appraiser remained in vehicle on cell phone while trainee performed exterior and interior inspection on own.

Some complaints were dismissed while others were sent to investigation, hearings, and/or disciplinary actions, which ranged from: Letters to Comply, Supervised Probation, Additional Educational Courses relavent to Violation, License Suspension, Order to Hand Over License.

The meeting also had a couple of other agenda items of interest. One was a preliminary report from the Appraisal Subcommittee of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. Another was a discussion concerning the 48th Legislature, 2nd Regular Session and Governor's recommended merger of the Arizona Board of Appraisal into the Arizona Department of Real Estate . Unfortunately, I was unable to attend that portion of the meeting and will have to obtain any information from other sources.

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