Mike Wells, the Pasco County property appraiser, recently mailed more than 300,000 Notice of Proposed Taxes (TRIM) to local taxpayers. (more…)

Pretty much everyone in the Southwest Florida housing market knows of Nancy Detert - for her service on the Sarasota County School Board, her eight years as member of the Florida House of Representatives and her exciting, underdog run for Congress. (more…)

Escambia County Property Appraiser Chris Jones says the Florida Department of Revenue is trying to force him to raise property assessments, a move that could reduce potential tax savings for some home, business and rental property owners. (more…)

A federal class-action suit is focusing fresh attention on an issue that’s important to homeowners in the Florida housing market and beyond. (more…)

Bill Temple, an appraiser with 25 years of experience, recently discussed the state of the Florida housing market and the pressure felt by appraisers to inflate property values with Herald-Tribune staff writer Michael Braga.

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Deliberately inflated appraisals are the key component in residential real estate schemes in the Southwest Florida housing market and across the country.

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Have inflated home appraisals helped fuel the current foreclosure crisis - and effectively helped scam artists rip off lenders? Property appraisers say yes.

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After more than a decade in the home appraisal industry, Bill Samuels decided to branch out on his own. Leaving a large Sarasota appraisal firm in order to bring a more personal touch to clients, Samuels planned on starting small - just him in fact.

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The gloves are coming off between the official home appraisers of Palm Beach and Broward counties. And it’s getting ugly.

According to the Palm Beach Post, Palm Beach County appraiser Gary Nikolits started the latest rift with his counterpart to the south by pointing out the much higher number of taxpayer protests filed in Broward County.

In a speech to members of the Economic Forum in West Palm Beach, Nikolits called his audience’s attention to a one-page handout showing that 5,482 Palm Beach County property owners protested their assessment last year.

In Broward County, 19,894 owners protested.

“I’ve been characterized by the Broward property appraiser as not being particularly taxpayer friendly,” Nikolits said. “In my opinion, taxpayer-friendly means you treat all property tax payers the same, that you don’t treat your friends, or political contributors differently.”

The Broward County Property Appraiser, Lori Parrish, countered that Nikolits’ numbers exaggerated the complaints filed by taxpayers.

Many of the protests were filed by homeowners who had missed the deadline for filing for a homestead exemption to which they were entitled.

Parrish said her workers encourage taxpayers to file protests so they can still reap the benefit of the homestead exemption.

“He’s just trying to save his political butt,” Parrish said of Nikolits. “Our office prides itself on being customer-friendly.”

In a world of shockingly expensive Florida mortgages and insurance, taxes are yet another escalating problem in the Sunshine State. And this is not the first time Nikolits and Parrish have clashed.

Parrish lowered assessments on commercial real estate by looking not just at fair market value but also at the income a property produces, an approach she considers to be friendlier to taxpayers.

Nikolits counters that the Florida Constitution requires county property appraisers to base their assessments on what a property would fetch in the open market. He said more complaints filed in Broward reflects on how Parrish is doing her job.

“I think a measure of being taxpayer-friendly is how many people actually complain about the job that you’re doing,” Nikolits said. “If four times as many people are complaining in Broward County as here, then I think I can reverse that and say I’m probably a little bit more taxpayer-friendly.”

In the meantime, Nikolits said homeowners shouldn’t expect tax assessments to fall this year. Despite low Florida mortgage rates, a slumping housing market has caused prices to plateau, not plummet - with exceptions such as downtown West Palm Beach’s condo market.

“There are pockets in this county that have seen significant decreases in market values, particularly in those areas that have been overdeveloped with condominiums and townhouse projects,” Nikolits said.

Continue reading in the Palm Beach Post …

St. Petersburg property appraiser Frank Gregoire couldn’t help but chuckle when an appraisal request, sent by a California loan originator, came through his fax machine.

“Please call if unable to attain this value BEFORE INSPECTION.”

Photos of the property, the request said, could not include “unfinished construction or damage.”

Gregoire knew right away that the company was trying to influence his valuation of the home through the home inspection stipulation, and it would be unethical to take on the work.

“It was the most blatant request I’ve seen,” said Gregoire, who is chairman of the Florida Real Estate Appraisal Board. He said he’s seen a recent spike in unethical requests like the one from California.

With the Florida housing market bottoming out and lending fraud on the rise, professional appraisers say they’re under more pressure to value homes at specific, and often inflated, amounts.

As a result, some big national lenders and law enforcement officials say they are taking a harder look at the role of appraisers in questionable loan deals. It’s against state law for an appraiser to agree to value a home at a pre-determined amount or intentionally omit information that could mislead a lender about the value of a home.

Sales involving a Florida mortgage typically can’t move forward without an appraisal showing the lender that the home is valued at close to the sales price.

Law enforcement and industry investigators say that mortgage fraud involving obtaining inflated loans so someone can illegally pocket thousands of dollars is an epidemic.

It can leave investor homebuyers and Florida home mortgage lenders on the hook for loans worth more than the property. Prices of nearby homes can be artificially driven up and neighbors can end up paying higher taxes because of the inflated values.

This type of mortgage fraud requires a string of real estate professionals willing to go along. A key to the scheme is having an appraiser willing to overvalue a property. Historically, such unscrupulous appraisers have not been caught, or were let off relatively easy, experts say.

That may be changing.

“Without an appraiser coming in at the magic number, the fraud is stopped in its tracks,” said Tampa police Detective Jim Bartoszak, who’s working on several loan fraud investigations.

The Tampa Tribune recently uncovered a series of such deals in Pinellas and Hillsborough County. In many of the cases, the same person provided the appraisal for a number of homes for the same client. Lenders and regulatory boards are now reviewing the accuracy of some of those appraisals.

Borrowing additional money on top of a Florida mortgage loan to help with closing costs or repairs is not unusual and not illegal - as long as the lender knows about it.

The fraud, experts say, happens when the appraisal is skewed and the lender is misled about the home’s cost. It is against state and federal laws to misstate who receives loan money on federal housing documents.

Why would appraisers risk their licenses for so little? The president of the Appraisal Institute, Richard Powers, says appraisers are tempted to overvalue a home when they’re starved for work.

During the recent real estate boom a lot of people became appraisers. Now that the market has cooled, there isn’t enough work to go around.

“Appraisers who do this are often guaranteed more work from the client,” Powers said.

The pressure to inflate an appraisal, he said, comes from Florida mortgage brokers, loan officers and real estate agents - who are also competing for work in a slow market.

Phillip Wallen said such intense pressure prompted him to up and leave the business. Wallen worked as an appraiser in Pinellas County for 12 years and owned his own business.

“Every day I would get calls that I needed to do an appraisal for X amount,” he said. “There are so many appraisers out there willing to give out whatever value a client wants. That makes it tough for the honest appraisers to compete.”