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Bank of America Complaint - The PMI Scam - PMI Private Mortgage Insurance
PMI Private Mortgage Insurance - Complaint
Recently I paid Bank of America an excess of $450 for THEIR approved appraiser to conduct an appraisal on my single family house with an additional detached house in the rear of property (aka as in-law quarters). They sent out a trainee from a sister city market... this in itself goes against the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practices' Competency Rule. Sending a trainee out to such a complex appraisal should of never happened, let alone someone from a totally different real estate market. Also, It should of sent up warning flags the moment he asked what the purpose of the loan was and what the mortgage balance is. What the heck does that have to do with getting the true value on my property? Very fishy if you ask me.
Having some working knowledge of what to look for in appraisals I noticed straight away discrepancies when I received the documents. One major issue is that he used duplexes as comps and two of the comps were in excess of 5 miles from my property which far exceeds Fannie Mae's 1 mile desirable comp. area.
I swiftly hired an independent appraisal firm to do a desktop review of the appraisal I received from BOA. The findings were SHOCKING to say the least. This "trainee" should not be getting his license and the supervisor who signed off on it should loose hers. The appraiser I hired found 5 comps all within one mile radius and the range of values were found to be 20-70k above the value the BOA appraiser gave GO FIGURE. My appraiser used the very same style of properties as mine for comps (all single family homes with detached single family homes or rentals in the rear of the property).
What upsets me is that they sent out a trainee from another market who has no knowledge of this area. He used the wrong form, gave wrong comps and did not even follow basic appraisal guidelines in doing so. Bank of America needs to have a department that oversees these appraisers and monitors their practices. Without that thousands of their customers could potentially be getting defrauded.
What it boils down to is a mere $1200 separates me from getting out of PMI based on BOA's appraised value. Their customer service is totally incompetent. To make matters worse after I sent the findings of my appraiser to the dispute dept they in turn simply just forwarded it to the ORIGINAL appraiser for review. Can you believe it??? they are not even opening an internal investigation on his practices? Of course this guy is not going to agree with the findings of MY appraiser. Do you think he wants to loose his job? So guess what: This guy came back after reviewing my desktop review and advised he is sticking by his original appraisal, are you Kidding me?? And that is the final answer? Wow!! The very person who made at least 7 major mistakes on the appraisal wont even agree that some errors occurred. And of course Bank of America has not one trained person willing to call me and go over my concerns. Nadda ONE. Let alone one trained person to oversee the appraisals that are being sent out.
If a multi Billion Dollar Corp does not invest in any trained in house people to look over erroneous appraisals and to set forth basic standards of conduct for the sub contractors they hire, then they should not be in business at all.
So much for standing by one of their core values "Doing the Right Thing for The Customer". I have spent more then 15 hours calling, writing on and researching this matter. Do you think I will at the very least get my money back for this bunk appraisal? doubtful. Let's not forget to mention the additional out of pocket I paid to an independent appraiser for his work. I wonder how many other people this is happening to.
Having some working knowledge of what to look for in appraisals I noticed straight away discrepancies when I received the documents. One major issue is that he used duplexes as comps and two of the comps were in excess of 5 miles from my property which far exceeds Fannie Mae's 1 mile desirable comp. area.
I swiftly hired an independent appraisal firm to do a desktop review of the appraisal I received from BOA. The findings were SHOCKING to say the least. This "trainee" should not be getting his license and the supervisor who signed off on it should loose hers. The appraiser I hired found 5 comps all within one mile radius and the range of values were found to be 20-70k above the value the BOA appraiser gave GO FIGURE. My appraiser used the very same style of properties as mine for comps (all single family homes with detached single family homes or rentals in the rear of the property).
What upsets me is that they sent out a trainee from another market who has no knowledge of this area. He used the wrong form, gave wrong comps and did not even follow basic appraisal guidelines in doing so. Bank of America needs to have a department that oversees these appraisers and monitors their practices. Without that thousands of their customers could potentially be getting defrauded.
What it boils down to is a mere $1200 separates me from getting out of PMI based on BOA's appraised value. Their customer service is totally incompetent. To make matters worse after I sent the findings of my appraiser to the dispute dept they in turn simply just forwarded it to the ORIGINAL appraiser for review. Can you believe it??? they are not even opening an internal investigation on his practices? Of course this guy is not going to agree with the findings of MY appraiser. Do you think he wants to loose his job? So guess what: This guy came back after reviewing my desktop review and advised he is sticking by his original appraisal, are you Kidding me?? And that is the final answer? Wow!! The very person who made at least 7 major mistakes on the appraisal wont even agree that some errors occurred. And of course Bank of America has not one trained person willing to call me and go over my concerns. Nadda ONE. Let alone one trained person to oversee the appraisals that are being sent out.
If a multi Billion Dollar Corp does not invest in any trained in house people to look over erroneous appraisals and to set forth basic standards of conduct for the sub contractors they hire, then they should not be in business at all.
So much for standing by one of their core values "Doing the Right Thing for The Customer". I have spent more then 15 hours calling, writing on and researching this matter. Do you think I will at the very least get my money back for this bunk appraisal? doubtful. Let's not forget to mention the additional out of pocket I paid to an independent appraiser for his work. I wonder how many other people this is happening to.
Comments:
Posted by MSCANTBEWRONG on 2008-04-17:
I've purchased several homes and sold one...on each of my transactions, I was given the option of obtaining an appraiser. If I did not want the responsibility, the bank said they would find someone but it was always better to let the buyer/seller obtain one as they could find an appraiser in the buying/selling community. This whole post seems a little strange to me...
Posted by paybacktime on 2008-04-17:
Bank of America uses their own appraisal program called LSI to get the values. LSI farms out the work to Bank approved appraisers ONLY. They do not allow their customers to hire independent appraisal firms to obtain the value. What part of the post seems strange?
Posted by *Brenda* on 2008-04-17:
Can you get your own appraiser and fight it?
Posted by grandma005 on 2008-04-17:
The only way you are going to get rid of PMI insurance is to refinance your loan with another loan company. Banks or loan Companies will not let you get rid of PMI insurance because it is high profit money for them.
Posted by paybacktime on 2008-04-17:
I did pay for an independent firm to look over the apparaisal and they provided comps. I took that to BOA who then sent it back to the VERY appraiser who did the original one and he said he is sticking with his desicion. I know he is going to wish he did not make that statement soon. Why Bank of America does not have a department overseeing the appraisers themselfs is beyond me. This can potentially become a BIG time CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT aginst BOA, because I know I am not the only one they are fraudently trapping in the program because of dummied down house values. As for getting a refi- I dont want to pay to do that. If I found a mortgage company that does not charge to do it I will switch.
Posted by *Brenda* on 2008-04-17:
Sorry, I missed that you had already hired your own appraiser. I hate Bank of America. I hope you get this resolved somehow!
Posted by moneybags on 2008-04-20:
Most Appraisers are licensed through the Real Estate Commission of the state in which you (or anyone lives.) Send them a formal, written complaint with copies of both appraisals, names, etc. Appraisal companies are required to have E&O (errors and ommissions) insurance, just like real estate agents/brokers. There is legal recourse thru the RE Commission. Good luck.
Posted by paybacktime on 2008-04-23:
:UPDATE:
They ordered another appraisal and low and behold the value came in high enough to release me from the PMI program.
For my "effort" I will get 1/3 of the price back of the appraisal and $100 gift cert. It hardly seems worth the min 15 hours I spent dealing with this, but better then nothing I suppose (?!).
One thing I did do is write to my States Dept of Real Estate Regulations. Let's hope they take a hard look at the appraisers practices.
They ordered another appraisal and low and behold the value came in high enough to release me from the PMI program.
For my "effort" I will get 1/3 of the price back of the appraisal and $100 gift cert. It hardly seems worth the min 15 hours I spent dealing with this, but better then nothing I suppose (?!).
One thing I did do is write to my States Dept of Real Estate Regulations. Let's hope they take a hard look at the appraisers practices.
Posted by alove on 2008-09-05:
There are so many problems with this post I do not know where to start but I guess I will hit the main topic. Borrowers are not EVER to hire their own appraiser. The lenders are only to use appraisals order by themselves or other lenders to keep appraisals as independent as possible. While borrowers ordering appraisals was once common, they should not have been doing it for several years not (An OCC bulletin sent out in 2003/2001-one of these years anyway- covered this). The reason is they want to make sure appraisers are not influenced by anyone. Now it is common practice for lenders to hire a third party company to handle the ordering of all their appraisals so they can keep in line with the OCC. I am an appraiser and an appraisal instructor. Hope this explains something anyway.
Posted by pburg on 2009-08-01:
I just got an appraisal from BOA (in an effort to remove PMI). They appraised our 5 year old home for less than the build price...and we've added a 1,000 square ft finished basement and hardwood floors since then...as with this case, there are all sorts of mistakes on the appraisal form. The most frustrating is that they have the square feet at 150 less than reality (which is published on the auditor site...how hard would it be to get that right?!) And, the comps are not right...there is a house for sale in the neighborhood same floor plan as ours but older, which I told him about, and they DIDN'T use that one but did use some that are 500 sq ft smaller without any upgrades on small lots. The "SOLD" comps he used are not even in our neighborhood! I'm not looking forward to the undoubtedly multi-hour long call on Monday. They are so dishonest!
Posted by I Sued Chase and Won over $7K on 2010-06-14:
Please read my post "I sued Chase and won over $7K".
LSI is owned by the banks. Talk about a conflict of interest! That is why they "push" the lender to use LSI for appraisals. This practice is ILLEGAL. It is at the crux of why I won AND COLLECTED over $7K from Chase. (Public record in San Mateo County, California.) If you would like to know more, you may contact me at "sanmateo53@gmail.com".
LSI is owned by the banks. Talk about a conflict of interest! That is why they "push" the lender to use LSI for appraisals. This practice is ILLEGAL. It is at the crux of why I won AND COLLECTED over $7K from Chase. (Public record in San Mateo County, California.) If you would like to know more, you may contact me at "sanmateo53@gmail.com".
Posted by Jolly1 on 2010-10-23:
Now it is common practice for lenders to hire a "third party" company to handle the ordering of all their appraisals so they can keep in line with the OCC. I am an appraiser and an appraisal instructor
As an instructor you should know as the rest of the appraisers in this country do…. THE "3rd party" is owned by there client....THE BANK!!!! Call it what you want. Bottom line ..it's the banks way of killing the real estate appraisal industry and going back to the pre-S&L days where most of the banks used there OWN appraisers....notice how I capped "OWN" because that’s what you are when you work for a VMC i.e the BANK/LENDER.
L/S LSI/TSI are all owned BY there BANKS. They are continuing to hire staff appraisers to do appraisals in house (by the QUOTE-Third Party).
At least next time the person above won't have to complain,… because the bank/third party will know what’s going on and they will make sure the right number is on the bottom of the appraisal….if that’s what you’ll want to call it.
As an instructor you should know as the rest of the appraisers in this country do…. THE "3rd party" is owned by there client....THE BANK!!!! Call it what you want. Bottom line ..it's the banks way of killing the real estate appraisal industry and going back to the pre-S&L days where most of the banks used there OWN appraisers....notice how I capped "OWN" because that’s what you are when you work for a VMC i.e the BANK/LENDER.
L/S LSI/TSI are all owned BY there BANKS. They are continuing to hire staff appraisers to do appraisals in house (by the QUOTE-Third Party).
At least next time the person above won't have to complain,… because the bank/third party will know what’s going on and they will make sure the right number is on the bottom of the appraisal….if that’s what you’ll want to call it.
Posted by barneycody on 2011-04-18:
three months of customer inadequete service w/h bank of amer, after 8 years, still have to get a appraisal to remove pmi., what a rip off!!
Posted by nancy on 2011-08-14:
I have spent 18 months trying to get PMI deleted. I readed 80% loan-to-value more than a year ago but still have to pay PMI. I was told (and it said so in my loan docs) that I could hire my own licensed appraiser. They filled out the required forms. BOA lost them. I sent them again. They were lost again but a smart customer service rep found them, misfiled. Then was told I had to hire THEIR appraiser. In all this time I have been unable to reach the same customer service person a second time for follow up. What recourse do we have?
Posted by BentOverbyBAC on 2012-03-11:
bank of america is owned and lead by the devil.
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