The vast majority of state disciplinary actions against appraisers are not being reported to the federal appraisal subcommittee, which maintains a national registry of state certified and licensed appraisers.
Though the subcommittee collects information on suspensions, voluntary surrenders and revocations of appraisal licenses, many state appraiser regulatory agencies issue reprimands, admonishments and fines that go unreported, said Joan Trice, the president of Allterra Group LLC in Salisbury, Md., which publishes the newsletter Appraisal Buzz.
After finding that many disciplinary actions are not recorded in any national database, Trice, a 24-year veteran of the business, created Clearbox LLC, which collects credentials from appraisers, aggregates state actions and conducts public record searches of bad acts by appraisers.
"If a lender knew they were letting sex offenders and convicted felons inside their customers' homes, the lawsuits would be staggering," Trice said. "We've identified murderers, sex offenders and violent criminals."
Trice said she recently uncovered an appraiser who was installing cameras in homeowners' bedrooms.
Federal interagency guidelines require that banks and appraisal management companies perform due diligence of their appraiser panels.
Though Clearbox has collected data from 30 states, some states have refused to assist largely because the data is in a paper format that requires manual entry into a database.
