Attorney general cuomo's new appraisal code! New law will affect you!
Date: Sat, 06/27/2009 - 15:52
Attorney general cuomo's new appraisal code! New law will affect you!
copied content restricted here - Jason
Excellent! I'm getting to like Cuomo more and more! At least he'
Excellent! I'm getting to like Cuomo more and more! At least he's actually *doing* something to help Americans defend themselves against unscrupulous business practices instead of just yackin' about it! They should send him to the FTC!! It would breathe new life into it!
It seems that the ones complaining against it are mainly the companies (mortgage bankers) that can no longer foist their inflated valuations upon people in order to cram them into a mortgage so tight that any valuation corrections turn the homeowner upside down. The real estate "downturn" was in large part a market correction due to overly inflated (not to mention runaway) valuations. (I worked at a couple of large real estate venture/finance firms and I knew the correction was coming before it did and I also knew it would be big - although I had estimated about 6 months later than the reality). Even the Appraisal Institute likes it:
"http://www.appraisalinstitute.org/newsadvocacy/downloads/OnlineLegislativeUpdate_Q2_08.pdf"
From: "http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_07/b4119042628146.htm"
Interestingly enough, there was a call for global valuation standards as far back as 2000, by The International Valuation Standards Council (a non-governmental organization -NGO), a :
"http://www.ivsc.org/news/nr/2000/Time_for_Global_Standards.pdf"
If it had been taken more seriously, the present real estate downturn may have been averted or at least muted.
There are certainly problems with the new legislation:
"http://news.prnewswire.com/DisplayReleaseContent.aspx?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/07-01-2009/0005053893&EDATE="
But it seems to me that the main jist of their gripe is unfair business practices! "[A]n appraiser blatantly was instructed to commit fraud by submitting an invoice with the appraiser's name, firm name, date and address, while leaving the amount of the fee blank, which the management company intended to fill in and submit to the lender" doesn't need new legislation. It's fraud plain and simple and charges should have been filed against this unscrupulous practice. So is everything coming down to whether or not one can scr-ape away some scrap of justification from the tatters of the tentacles of runaway legislation of legislation? Isn't there such a thing called ETHICS anymore? Honor? Fairness? Justice? Or is it really all just a moot point? No, any time you have humans involved, there is always the chance for cheats, liars, and the greedy to siphon illicit funds for themselves. In these cases, the normal Rule of Law should fall - 10 more tons of regulations are a waste.
Personally, I don't think the mortgage industry has any business having any hand whatsoever in property valuation, which should stay at the local county Assessor's Office. If they wish to farm out, then that is something else, but one group is responsible for it - we don't need any more bureaucracies, we have far too many as it is.
Here is "Financial Regulatory Reform: A New Foundation" by the US Treasury Dept., on the site of the American Society of Appraisers:
"http://www.appraisers.org/Files/RP%20Website/FinancialRegulatoryReformANewFoundation.pdf"
