Home and Auto I'm going to club a guy over the head with a jug of antifreeze.

**Rain Man** · 01-09-2009, 06:53 PM

Given the low interest rates in these days of financial turmoil, I decided it was a good time to refinance my house. So we did. Easy.

As part of the process, we had to get an appraisal of the house, and the lender had it done. It came back and we were like, "What the -?".

I know that home prices are low right now, but this was ridiculous. So we started looking at the details. It turns out that the guy used a square footage that was 700 square feet smaller than our house, and somewhere along the line he also lopped off a bedroom and a bathroom.

Our house is three stories, and it was obvious that he had excluded the third floor from the square footage. I don't know what happened with the bedrooms since that hasn't changed for 100 years. We added a third bathroom twelve years ago.

So I sent the guy an exceedingly polite e-mail and said, "Hey, I think there's an error. You can go to the county assessor's web site and confirm the correct statistics on the house. Would you fix it, please?"

That was two weeks ago, and I got a call today from some low-level dweeb who said, "You're not right. We used public records to get our stats." I argued with said dweeb for a few minutes and finally said, "Give me your boss."

The appraiser got on the line and I asked what public records he used. He said he'd used MLS listings. He was quite defensive, and I said, "Dude. Seriously. Go to the assessor's web site. Look at the numbers. Your square footage isn't even right."

He said, "The lender is my client, so go through them if you want me to redo it. But I'll need to do a much more thorough interior appraisal."

Aha. So you undervalue my home and now you want me to go demand a bigger contract for you to fix it. I understand your game.

I said, "I can go to your client and embarrass the hell out of you, or you can fix it now. What do you want to do?" He said to go to his client.

I don't think his client is going to get the letter that he's hoping for. I'm turning that SOB in, and he's going to come out of it wishing that he had died in a fire.

Are assessors licensed? Maybe I'll write a letter to the state, too.

What has happened to this world? Does this guy think he's not going to get toasted over this? It's open and shut. It's not even like there's room for argument.

01-09-2009, 06:53 PM	Topic Starter
Rain Man Seize life. Be an ermine. Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: My house Casino cash: $-682449 VARSITY	I'm going to club a guy over the head with a jug of antifreeze. Given the low interest rates in these days of financial turmoil, I decided it was a good time to refinance my house. So we did. Easy. As part of the process, we had to get an appraisal of the house, and the lender had it done. It came back and we were like, "What the -?". I know that home prices are low right now, but this was ridiculous. So we started looking at the details. It turns out that the guy used a square footage that was 700 square feet smaller than our house, and somewhere along the line he also lopped off a bedroom and a bathroom. Our house is three stories, and it was obvious that he had excluded the third floor from the square footage. I don't know what happened with the bedrooms since that hasn't changed for 100 years. We added a third bathroom twelve years ago. So I sent the guy an exceedingly polite e-mail and said, "Hey, I think there's an error. You can go to the county assessor's web site and confirm the correct statistics on the house. Would you fix it, please?" That was two weeks ago, and I got a call today from some low-level dweeb who said, "You're not right. We used public records to get our stats." I argued with said dweeb for a few minutes and finally said, "Give me your boss." The appraiser got on the line and I asked what public records he used. He said he'd used MLS listings. He was quite defensive, and I said, "Dude. Seriously. Go to the assessor's web site. Look at the numbers. Your square footage isn't even right." He said, "The lender is my client, so go through them if you want me to redo it. But I'll need to do a much more thorough interior appraisal." Aha. So you undervalue my home and now you want me to go demand a bigger contract for you to fix it. I understand your game. I said, "I can go to your client and embarrass the hell out of you, or you can fix it now. What do you want to do?" He said to go to his client. I don't think his client is going to get the letter that he's hoping for. I'm turning that SOB in, and he's going to come out of it wishing that he had died in a fire. Are assessors licensed? Maybe I'll write a letter to the state, too. What has happened to this world? Does this guy think he's not going to get toasted over this? It's open and shut. It's not even like there's room for argument.
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