KING PROPERTY GROUP LLC

Mr. King called us to schedule the appointment and arrived on time to appraise our house. He seemed nice enough, polite, and appeared interested in information one of us provided about specific features (screened-in porch and fireplace) and the improvements we had made in the house since we purchased it in 2001: (1) a new heating and hot-water system, (2) replacement windows and doors, (3) new roofing, (4) attic insulation, (5) electrical upgrade and (6) energy-efficient appliances. We had also just undergone a very recent renovation in which we combined two floors of our three-family house into one 4-bedroom unit for our own use, with a remaining one-bedroom rental apartment. Mr. King walked around the property, viewed the house from the back, but didn't appear very interested in the interior of the house until one of us showed him some of the improvements listed above. Unlike a previous appraisal some years ago in which the appraiser measured everything and asked a lot of questions, Mr. King asked only one question--How much is the rent? It seemed as if he was here all of 15 minutes and would have preferred to just drive by. We were nonetheless unpleasantly surprised when we received his final appraisal, which contained several assumptions he never expressed to us, or confirmed. Besides being wildly under the estimate provided by the bank by nearly 25%, it contained several errors--some major. For example: -- In attempting to assess our rent --which he seemed to think was low, given his report--he never asked what was included in the rent or why it was set at that figure. We could have told him that our community, Takoma Park, in Montgomery County, is the only city in Maryland with rent control. Mr. King has 10 years of experience as an appraiser, though, and should have known this fact, even if he is from Clinton, MD, about 37 mi. away in Prince George's County. -- He apparently had just feigned interest in the features and improvements of the house. None of them made it into the report, nor did he tell us at the time that these improvements were immaterial to his assessment. -- His appraisal report included photos of the house exterior, interior, street scene and comparable properties. Mr. King was unable to find truly comparable buildings nearby, and makes two serious mistakes in identifying them. His street scene photo of the house across the street from ours is identified as a house on another street which had been condemned at the time as uninhabitable. It has since been gutted and renovated. -- Another comparable property photo shows a building with three condo units, but lists the value of just one unit as comparable to our house. -- The house was built in 1948, which made it 62 years old, not 75, as he listed in his report. Overall, it was a sloppy and unprofessional job, riddled with errors. We pointed out these errors to the bank, hoping to give Mr. King an opportunity to correct his mistakes. The bank passed on the information to Mr. King; nothing was corrected. We appealed to Landsafe to review the appraisal and nothing was changed. We requested, and received, a refund of the $400 cost of the appraisal from the bank.