There’s really no excuse for either of these appraisers to do what they did and just hearing about it pisses me off. These are the guys who are ruining my standing in the community as an appraiser. “Doesn’t matter” is a decision for the lender to make, not the appraiser.
This is an example of the problems appraisers face on a regular basis. What the appropriate terms for a loan are for a house with an incomplete 2nd bathroom is a lending decision, not an appraisal decision. But the reality is that many of these loan originators don’t want to go to the extra effort and work to make and justify that decision. They just want their deals to look clean so that their job is easier. Every appraiser has stories about lenders asking them to remove negative information about the subject property (lie by omission) from their appraisal reports because the offending information will “kill the deal”.
If it really was just a sink, the appraiser should have included the photo, estimated the cost to cure at less than $500 and say it would have no material affect on either value or marketability (which is 100% true) in the market. Then let the lender make their own decision and take responsibility for that decision. Instead, this lender was most likely pressuring the appraiser to lie for them so that their decision would be easier. I can virtually guarantee the appraiser didn’t just do this of their own accord.
