UPDATED: November 2010
OUR PRIVACY POLICY
Congress passed the Gramm Leach Bliley Act, which requires certain companies under certain circumstances to provide an "opt-out" for their customers in regards to the dissemination of nonpublic personal information. The purpose of the Gramm Leach Biley Act was to protect consumer's private information that is disclosed to Financial Institutions during the course of financial transactions. Real estate appraisers are cited as examples of Financial Institutions thus are required to comply with the Act. As a real estate appraisal company we often share nonpublic information, with other appraisers and related entities. Nonpublic Personal Information such as square footage of living area and non-living areas, other property physical data (bedrooms, baths, amenities), sale price, and financing terms. For a real estate appraiser to be able to appraise property, we must know not only what we are appraising but have access to information on sales and listing data. Much of our commercial data comes for subscripton services as well as some from MLS. We also gather data from other appraisers and real estate brokers. Without the sharing of this data the appraisal process would not work.
The sharing of data is necessary for appraisers to have the ability to adequately appraise real property. If you do not want us to share this information, please notify: ATTN: Information Sharing, Industry Appraisal; 6907 Atwell
Houston, Texas 77081. Access to this information is restricted to a need to know. However, our ability to restrict the information in this appraisal is limited. In the real estate lending industry, real estate appraisals are widely distributed to mortgage underwriters, review appraisers, loan officers, loan processors and others in the loan process. If the appraisal is part of a court case or subject to review by state licensing authorities then it may become public record and available under the public records act. The appraisal work file contains all information regarding the property and appraisal data. That information is considered private is not made available to others except as disclosed within this policy.
