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 Read more…
The FDIC is now contending that independent contractor appraisers are the legal agents of appraisal management companies (AMCs) in both of its cases against LSI Appraisal and CoreLogic. Based on this contention, the FDIC asserts that the AMCs should be Read more…
As was first predicted on this blog here, the FDIC, as receiver for failed lender Washington Mutual, sued appraisal management company LSI Appraisal and its corporate parent Lender Processing Services for breach of contract and gross negligence on May 9, Read more…
In 2011, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) has continued to file a high number of lawsuits against real estate appraisers blaming them for loan losses of the failed lenders that the FDIC and other agencies supervised during the mortgage Read more…
In terms of alleged damages, the biggest case pending against any appraisal firm in the United States — actually, I feel safe writing the biggest case ever — is the lawsuit filed in federal court in Idaho by a group Read more…
The following article has been published on readimember.org for LIA-insured appraisers and other members of READI. Liability Risks to Appraisers and AMCs Stemming from the Appraisal Provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act “The slides below are from a presentation by Peter Read more…
(See updates here and here.) In December, we offered 11 predictions for AMC liability risks in 2011. Three of the predictions were: #1 — several AMCs would be sued by the FDIC, #5 — some AMCs would see their “reps Read more…
Flagstar Bank recently appealed two cases to the Ohio Supreme Court that Flagstar lost against appraisers at the trial court level based on Ohio’s statute of limitations. Under Ohio law, the statute of limitations for most professional liability actions like Read more…
Note: this post has been updated since it first appeared. Appraiser E&O policies are changing rapidly in the present litigation environment and an appraiser’s policy terms may change from policy year to year. This may be the first year that Read more…
We are often posed these questions by appraisers at our loss prevention CE seminars: will the FDIC sue an appraiser who “only” signed an appraisal report as a supervisor? Will the FDIC sue a trainee or former trainee? Will the Read more…