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We at Reece Appraisal Company welcome you to our news site. We would also like to invite you to view our other web site that we have had going for about 10 years: http://ahost4u.com/appraisal-realestate/ just click on the underscored name and it should take you directly to our other web site.
As most appraisers today are concerned about the fairly new, July 2002, law that equates appraisers to lenders so to speak. We are offering our version of our privacy statement below:
OUR PRIVACY STATEMENT
DISCLOSURE REQUIRED BY THE GRAMM-LEACH-BLILEY PRIVACY ACT
The Gramm-Leach-Bliley bill concerns the Disclosure of Non Public Personal Information. Whether Appraisers are included in this bill is still being discussed in Congress. While this goes on we are presenting our policy instead of waiting for further information.
1. The Rule, as proposed, "applies only to information about individuals who obtain a financial product or service from a financial institution to be used for personal, family or household purposes", and it states that the "principal type of entity subject to the Rule is a 'financial institution,' a term that is used very broadly under the Act."
Appraisals that are made for Organization, Banks, Governmental or Business purposes are not covered by this Rule. This includes Estates of deceased or living individuals and Trusts.
2. Residential (Single Family Homes) are the subject of this Rule. There are two types of individuals covered in this Rule. A) Consumers of Reports. These are individuals that are a one time or occasional user of the Appraiser for services, and B) Customers. Those individuals who have an on-going relationship with an Appraiser to do many appraisals each year.
3. Commercial, governmental, industrial, apartment complexes or other non-individual appraisals are not covered by the act.
4. (A) Appraisal firms do not extend credit, sell insurance, provide brokerage services or offer other similar financial products to consumers; B)Appraisal firms do not set the terms and conditions under which credit is extended or other financial products are offered; C) Appraisal firms do not receive from financial institutions ( or otherwise collect from consumers) the types of "personal financial information" contemplated by Congress when it enacted the GLB provision.
5. We do not receive sensitive non-public private information from the financial institutions which we serve, such as social security numbers, incomes, credit ratings, marital status, age, sex, religious preferences, or many other non-public private information. Should we come in contact with any of this sensitive personal information we will immediately shred it. We do not want this information in our files.
6. We do collect information from the following sources:
A) Sales contracts. We are required to look at the sales contract, USPAP (Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice) to determine if there is something other than the real estate included in the sales price of the property, such as furniture, or seller paying some of the closing costs, etc. These items affect the amount actually paid for he real estate, as shown on the appraisal form.
B) The address of the property, which is shown on the appraisal form.
C) The size, quality and condition description of the improvements from inspection and measuring of the subject. This is shown on the appraisal report.
The information we do collect is the sales price, the size of the house, the quality level and description of the amenities and condition description as stated above. All or most of this information becomes public record, the size of the house is public record on the PRC (property record card at the County Tax Accessors Office, as measured by the County Mass Appraiser). The law requires that the actual sales price be disclosed to the Probate Judge Office for recordation of the deed, and affixing of deed stamps. Therefore the Appraiser really is not collecting any non-personal private information that is not legally available from public sources. The information we collect and share is the same information available from MLS services.
There is a key provision of this act. Should the consumer decide later (up to 4 days) that none of the information should be shared they have the right to contact the Appraiser and inform him or her of their decision.
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