Peter M. Cella & Associates

"Unfortunately, Darlene J is not telling an accurate story. She hired me to appraise her home so that she could sell it directly to someone she knew, but insisted that I know that her home was in Redwood City as she has posted above and not Emerald Hills. After doing my research, I found and informed her that official San Mateo County public records show that the property is, in fact, in Emerald Hills and not in Redwood City. When I told her this, she said that the public records are not correct and that she knows where her home is located. Her residence is a dated home with a kitchen, baths and other finishes that are from the 60s or 70s. I typically spend 40 minutes to an hour inspecting a property, but I spent more time than typical at the inspection because she wanted to chat. I did point out, as concern for her own safety, that the house did lack a safe number of smoke detectors and that it did not have the required CO detector per state law. By spending the extra time listening to her did make me late for my next appointment. Before leaving, I did tell her that I was very busy (as were all appraisers at that time) with work, but would get to her appraisal report in the order of the inspections that I had made over the past week. I told her that I would not have the report completed for about a week or two. As I do with all clients, I did collect a check from her BUT, as I tell every client, I do not deposit the check until the report is completed and delivered. She did call me on March 14 and I did tell her that I had hoped to have her report completed that day. When she called I had finished the reconciliation of the value and was working on the narrative section of the report. Even though I had previously told her that her report would be completed in a week to two weeks, she was insisting that I was not working on hers and felt I was working on a report for another client. Darlene J is also not telling the truth about the fact that she call me AFTER she received the report on March 15, not before receiving it on that date. She called to tell me that she was upset that the value was not what she wanted and wanted to hire a new appraiser. It was then that she told me that she was going to write a terrible review about me and my work and say that she paid me a never received the report. It was after she made these comments, that I said, that she was so upset with my valuation that I didn't think she would have been happy with anything that I provided. My reports are based upon the condition of the subject property and how it relates to comparable properties (I used 6 comparables) and not on what someone thinks or wants it to be. I was not going to change my report based upon this threat. It should be noted that I did not deposit the check until March 16, AFTER she received the completed report. It should again be noted that I delivered the report prior to her writing the review and within the week to two weeks that I had told her when I was there on March 3. I do have documentation of these dates and times. I have been a real estate broker for over 40 years and appraising for over 25 years and my work has been highly regarded. I do a considerable amount of expert witness work and have even had a judge make an extremely complimentary comment about the quality of my work in her summary judgement. The comments that Darlene J made do not represent the comments and opinions of my extensive clientele and reflect someone who wanted a report that reflected her opinion and not that of a non-biased professional real estate appraiser."