Certification and licensure of real estate appraisers and requirements for appraisal reports and granting rule-making authority

This bill prohibits a person, for compensation, from performing a real estate appraisal or preparing or cosigning a real estate appraisal report, unless he or she is licensed or certified as a real estate appraiser by DRL. In addition, under the bill, a person who is not licensed or certified may not, for compensation, engage in the business or occupation of, or hold himself or herself out as, a real estate appraiser.

As a result, a person who is not licensed or certified may not, for compensation, appraise real estate or cosign an appraisal report, even if he or she does not violate the current prohibitions. The bill does not affect the requirements that a person must satisfy to be licensed or certified.

There are three exceptions to the prohibitions created in the bill. First, a person licensed by DRL under current law as a real estate salesperson or broker may prepare a broker market analysis without being licensed as a real estate appraiser under the bill. Under the bill, a "broker market analysis" is an analysis used solely to establish a listing price or purchase price for a property. Second, the bill does not apply to an "assessor," defined as a person who assesses real estate for property tax purposes for a town, village, city, or county or the Department of Revenue (DOR).

Under current law, which this bill does not affect, assessors are regulated by DOR.

Third, the bill's prohibitions do not apply to an individual who is supervised by a licensed or certified appraiser, under rules to be be promulgated by DRL.

In addition, the bill requires each certified or licensed appraiser to pay to DRL the annual registry fee that is required by the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. Under current law, a certified or licensed appraiser must pay the fee to DRL only if he or she performs, or desires to perform, appraisals in certain transactions overseen by federal agencies.

Appraisal reports Under current law, an appraisal report prepared by a real estate appraiser must comply with certain requirements, including stating whether the appraiser has conducted an on-site inspection of the real estate or buildings or dwellings on the real estate.

This bill requires an appraisal report that pertains to residential real estate or vacant land also to include information about conveyances of the real estate or land within three years preceding the appraisal, including the sales prices or values of ownership interests transferred, the identities of the grantors and grantees, and the numbers assigned by the register of deeds for recording the conveyances.