Today I finally received payment on an appraisal delivered in March, almost six months to the day. The appraisal was prepared for (and contracted by) a major financial institution. There was no problem with the appraisal. It was well prepared (if I do say so myself!) and there were no questions or issues during the review.
We called no less than a dozen times to follow up on the payment status; first we were told that they’d “look into it.” Then we were told, “don’t worry, you’ll get paid” and “you know we’re good for it.” The reason for the delay, we learned, is that the loan hadn’t closed and the Bank’s policy is to pay for all third party costs at closing; they do not collect the appraisal fee from the borrower up front.
This policy is wrong on so many levels:
- The Bank should not expect their appraiser to subsidize their borrower for six months
- While I know that the Bank “is good for it”, our landlord and phone company still expect their payment on time.
Ironically, in this instance, the appraisal was a 2-week rush assignment, where we worked through two weekends to get completed on time.