FACT History

In 1989 the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA) by the US Government mandated that all states put in place a real estate appraiser licensing and certification process in response to which the Texas Legislature created the Texas Real Estate Appraiser Commission (TREAC). However, the 1991 session of the Texas Legislature dissolved that commission and the Texas Appraisal Licensing and Certification Board (TALCB) was created to replace it with a different board structure. TALCB was created within the Texas Real Estate Commission. However, there was significant opposition and lobbying against its creation which if successfully defeated, would have not allowed any real estate appraisers in Texas if the opposition succeeded. In early February of 1991, a group of hurriedly assembled volunteer appraisers from across Texas traveled to Austin and visited with their State representatives and senators and, based on feedback, it was determined that in order to have real estate appraisal services in Texas be provided by Texas appraisers under a new duly authorized board, immediate lobbying and support of such legislation in a single voice was required. Later in February 1991, the Foundation Appraisers Coalition of Texas (FACT) was formed and lobbyists, Kent Caperton and Roger Miller, were hired with voluntary contributions. As a result of that lobbying and support by FACT during the 1991 legislative session, the TALCB was created by the TALC Statute in time to allow Texas real estate appraisers to continue to appraise in Texas. Roger Miller remained as the FACT lobbyist through August 2013. Eric Woomer is the current FACT lobbyist. 

FACT was originally created with membership of chapters of the Appraisal Institute (AI), the Texas Chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers (ASFMRA) and the National Association of Independent Fee Appraisers (NAIFA) with FACT to be supported by annual dues from the real estate appraiser members of the member chapters. Additionally, later in the 1990's, a chapter of the American Society of Appraisers (ASA) joined FACT with its membership based upon those ASA members involved in real estate appraisal only due to the various ASA membership categories. 

The original legislation passed in 1991 did not have provisions for investigation and enforcement. The Appraisal Subcommittee (ASC) included that as part of the mandate. As a result, in the 1993 session, FACT through its lobbyists and member support caused a basic enforcement process to be added to the TALC statute. FACT was heavily involved in two additional revisions to the TALC statute after the 1991 and 1993 sessions primarily to insure continuing compliance with ASC requirements. Legislative efforts in the latter part of the 1990's included successful opposition to legislation that could have included sales tax collection imposed on appraisal services. 

Beginning in late 2009, FACT geared up for efforts to prepare a bill and get it introduced to create a registration and enforcement process to identify and regulate appraisal management companies (AMC's) through statute. Through very significant efforts by FACT, the current AMC statute was passed with FACT continuing to be involved in rules and other TALCB activities needed to enact and fund its operation. During that same year, a bill to revise many areas of the TALC statute regulating real estate appraisers was created and passed through efforts by FACT revising many areas of the statute for compliance with ASC requirements as well as removing the Provisional License from the TALC statute and expanding the authority of the TALC board to regulate all appraisal services making Texas a mandatory state for real estate appraisal activities for the first time since its creation. FACT was also supportive of legislative changes to the TREC statute disallowing real estate valuation by TREC licensees and defining conditions for TREC licensees to do broker price opinions (BPO's). 

Subsequent to the 2011 legislative session, FACT was instrumental in initiating rule revisions to the enforcement process, primarily in the entry area of complaints with rule revisions to 22 TAC Section 124 of the TALC statute which were adopted at the TALCB meeting on May 17, 2013. Previously, a complaint would remain on an appraiser's record even if dismissed. Due to the substantial increase in complaints, due largely to the single family residential market problems in recent years, closure times, even for dismissals, increased substantially. The stigma of a complaint remained over a real estate appraiser even when a case is dismissed for lack of cause. The complaint form has been revised to a "complaint intake form". By the rule change, when an intake form is received and preliminarily reviewed and no merit for further processing is found, the case is dismissed before becoming a formal complaint on the appraiser's record. 

In addition to monitoring several bills in the 2013 Legislative Session that could have impacted Texas real estate appraisers if they had moved forward to passage, FACT was instrumental in defeating a bill that would have eliminated the public access to hotel motel room tax revenue information from the State Comptroller's office. That information continues to remain accessible from the state website. 

Since its formation, representatives of FACT have attended every TALCB board meeting and essentially all other public meetings and work groups of significance in the TALC operations with those activities continuing to this date. Current activities include providing input into the formulation of the sponsor/trainee course and the rules related to it. FACT is currently involved in preparations for statutory changes needed in the upcoming 2015 legislative session. 

In the years after the 1991 legislative session, FACT has continued to monitor legislation that might impact real estate appraisers in Texas being watchful of legislation that would address topics such as sales tax, appraisal processes and transaction disclosure in deeds and also keeping the TALCB statute in compliance with requirements of the ASC and the federal mandate. It is likely that there will always be regulatory issues that can impact the activities and livelihood of real estate appraisers in Texas. FACT is operated on a "bare bones" budget with only two paid staff consisting of a part-time Executive Director, currently Amy Ables, and a lobbyist, currently Eric Woomer, with essentially all other activities and efforts provided by volunteers. If FACT is to continue to be the regulatory watch dog for real estate appraisers in Texas, it and FACTPAC have to continue to be adequately funded to operate at an effective level. 






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