The state regulatory agency (Office of Real Estate Appraisers) disciplines appraisers all the time. If you go and read the newsletters they post on their website you’ll see how many appraisers get reproved or fined or suspended or revoked. A lot more appraisers get suspended or revoked than realty agents, and I can guarantee you that appraisers are absolutely no worse than the agents and brokers in terms of conduct.
Nationwide, hardly a week goes by but that some appraiser gets sent to jail. Often times they are the only party involved with a fraudulent deal who gets serious discipline or jail, even though they never get anything more out of one of these fraudulent deals than their standard fee.
I woud say that most appraisers carry errors and omissions insurance, which of course is of no use if they’re committing or enabling fraud.
I’ll never stick up for a crooked appraiser, but I will say there is no such thing as a predatory appraiser; that is, one trolling the streets in search of a scam or a victim. Appraiser misconduct generally takes the form of enabling an unreasonable deal from which other people benefit; usually at the behest or coercion by a realty agent and or mortgage originator. If you’re at all concerned about bad appraisals the first step would be to hold those other professionals to their own standards of conduct as closely as we are held to ours’.
