Immediate Action Required! The Title/Appraisal Vendor Management Association (TAVMA) has issued a press release refuting NAMB’s position that the Home Valuation Code of Conduct (HVCC) is detrimental to both consumers and small businesses. The group asserts that there is no tangible evidence that appraisal management companies (AMCs) are a part of the problem. A copy of the TAVMA press release can be found below.

• Intentionally misstating the value of a home;
• Providing false information within an appraisal report;
• Any falsified information that affects the value of a home; and
• AMCs assigning appraisers from a different municipality, county, or even state to appraise the target house, therefore unfamiliar with the neighborhood and unable to produce an accurate appraisal.
  • Because of this, the HVCC is forcing appraisers to be in direct violation of the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice (USPAP) for jurisdictional competence.

Contact Information:
TAVMA: (412) 507-2318
Find your state Appraisal Board information here.
 
Please continue to act on NAMB’s Call to Action regarding the HVCC. Click here for more information. 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:      Jeff Schurman, 412-849-1261, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  

TAVMA Pushes Back on NAMB HVCC Claims

Exec Dir claims trade group is mischaracterizing AMCs as a means to an end.
 
PITTSBURGH (June 30, 2009) –  The Title/Appraisal Vendor Management Association (TAVMA) has sent a 3-page letter to the National Association of Mortgage Brokers (NAMB) to protest that organization’s “inaccuracies and mischaracterizations of appraisal management companies (AMCs)” in what TAVMA calls an effort to undermine the HVCC.

“Everyone in the industry knows there were serious problems with the collateral valuation part of the business,” said Jeff Schurman, TAVMA executive director. “Maintaining an arms-length relationship between the loan originator and appraiser is the centerpiece of the HVCC. To characterize AMCs as the centerpiece of the Code is simply false.”

While Schurman admits that the HVCC is not perfect in that it upends long-standing appraiser/client relationships, he said that attacks levied against AMCs are baseless. These organizations ensure an arms-length transaction between loan officers and appraisers. They are the best way to assure an arms-length relationship between appraisers and their clients.

“AMCs are not the problem and there is no tangible data to suggest that they are,” Schurman wrote in the letter. “The NYAG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac determined that loan originators, including mortgage brokers, whose compensation depends upon the loan closing, were exerting improper influence on appraisers’ work. Moreover, appraisers themselves vehemently accused loan originators and mortgage brokers of exerting improper influence.”

In its letter, TAVMA calls the NAMB’s efforts a “smear campaign” and asked NAMB to take its grievances with the Code to its authors, the GSEs and the Attorney General of New York. A number of politicians were copied on the letter, including Barney Frank, Paul Kanjorski, Christopher Dodd and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.

   About TAVMA

Headquartered in , The Title/Appraisal Vendor Management Association (TAVMA), is a non-profit professional organization that represents more than 50 companies engaged in the real estate settlement services industry. TAVMA promotes the vendor management industry and presents its members’ positions to government and media, protects its members’ rights to do business without unfair and anticompetitive legislation and regulations and provides useful information about issues impacting the real estate settlement services industry. For more information about the organization, visit the website at www.tavma.org.