The Bank or any third party specifically authorized by the Bank (including, but not limited to, appraisal companies, appraisal management companies, and correspondent lenders) shall be responsible for selecting, retaining, and providing for payment of all compensation to the appraiser. The Bank will not accept any appraisal report completed by an appraiser selected, retained, or compensated in any manner by any other third party (including Mortgage Brokers and real estate agents).
There must be separation of the loan production functions and appraisal functions. An employee in loan production function shall have no involvement in the operations of the appraisal function. These employees
•Members of the Bank’s loan production staff;
•Any person who is compensated on a commission basis upon the successful completion of a loan; and
•Any person whose immediate supervisor is not independent of the loan production staff and process are prohibited from: (i) selecting, retaining, recommending, or influencing the selection of any appraiser for a particular appraisal assignment or for inclusion on a list or panel of appraisers approved or forbidden to perform appraisals for the Bank; and (ii) having any substantive communications with an appraiser or appraisal management company relating to or having an impact on valuation, including ordering or managing an appraisal assignment.
•If absolute lines of independence cannot be achieved as a result of the Bank’s small size and limited staff, the Seller must be able to clearly demonstrate that it has prudent safeguards to isolate its collateral evaluation process from influence or interference from its loan production process.
Any employee of the Bank (or if the Bank retains an appraisal company or appraisal management company, any employee of that company) tasked with selecting appraisers for an approved panel or substantive appraisal review must be:
•Appropriately trained and qualified in the area of real estate appraisals; and
•In the case of an employee of the Bank, wholly independent of the Mortgage production staff and process.