Appraisal management companies (“AMCs”) are one step closer to being required to pay annual registry fees. The Appraisal Subcommittee (“ASC”) of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Counsel published a final rule on September 25, 2017, pursuant to its authority granted under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (“Dodd-Frank Act”), to govern a state’s collection of annual registry fees from AMCs. The final rule will take effect on November 24, 2017.
The Dodd-Frank Act amended Title XI of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 (“FIRREA”) to require states that opt to register and supervise AMCs to collect an annual AMC registry fee. The federal law requires such states to collect (i) from AMCs that have been in existence for more than one year, an annual registry fee of $25 multiplied by the number of appraisers working for or contracting with the AMC in the state during the previous year; and (ii) from AMCs that have not been in existence for more than a year, $25 multiplied by an appropriate number determined by the ASC. The Dodd-Frank Act gives the ASC discretion to increase the $25 fee to $50 if necessary to satisfy the ASC’s functions under the Dodd-Frank Act.
The ASC proposed regulations in May 2016 to implement the registry fee requirement and received 104 public comment letters. Most notably, the proposed regulations offered the ASC’s interpretation of what it means to be “working for or contracting with” an AMC for purposes of the registry fee. The final rule effectively adopts the standards from the proposed rule and establishes the annual AMC registry fee for AMCs in states that opt to register and supervise AMCs as follows:
- For AMCs that have been in existence for more than one year, $25 multiplied by the number of appraisers who have performed an appraisal for the AMC in connection with a covered transaction in said State during the previous year; and
- For AMCs that have been in existence for less than one year, $25 multiplied by the number of appraisers who have performed an appraisal for the AMC in connection with a covered transaction in said State since the AMC commenced doing business.
The final rule defines “performed an appraisal” to mean “the appraisal service requested of an appraiser by the AMC was provided to the AMC.”
Continue Reading FFIEC Finalizes Regulations for the Payment of AMC Registry Fees