Appraisal Delays
UPDATE:
I sent a list of very specific questions to our lender to clarify what's going on and magically, the response was that the appraisal had just arrived. After much discussion where the lender made us push back our closing another day due to the 3 day law, we finally got a copy of our appraisal and there is no actual appraised value in the packet, just the Uniform Property Data Report. There is this note though: Based on the property data submitted and the last DU submission, no appraisal is required for this case."
*********
We are confused about our situation and hope someone can help clarify our options. Our realtor has been very helpful so far, but she's out of town right now and she's also the broker, so we can't reach out to anyone else.
Our lender appeared to be helpful too, but I'm not getting very far with my questions.
All that to say, I don't know who else to reach out to.
We paid the appraisal fee 22 days ago.
13 days ago, our lender emailed to say that we would only need a desktop appraisal so some of our fee would be returned to us.
6 days ago, we got this email from our lender: "we have been unable to get an appraiser to schedule to view your new home. We have an option to keep trying this company to engage a local appraiser OR cancel the order and hope the next appraiser is responsive. This happens sometime but not a lot." Then later that afternoon, we got an email saying that an appraiser had reached out to the seller.
Since then, we've been told by our lender that the appraisal was coming in "today" and each day it never did. Our realtor blamed this delay on our lenders for not following up. Before she left, she called our lenders. They told her that the appraiser had the flu and that caused the delay. However, the flu supposedly happened between 7-12 days ago.
I called and talked to the lender today. She seemed unclear if the inspection had happened or not. She kept asking me if I was there. The only information I have about the appraisal situation has come from the lender emails. The lender said she would put a rush on the situation again, but they've been saying "rush" the whole time.
I sent an email to the lender tonight asking very specific questions about the who / what / when of the situation.
When we sold our place (closed today), the appraiser did a site visit within 3 days. The new house is located about 3 hours away, but not in another state or anything.
What can we do here? Are we truly at the mercy of everyone else? We are in a temporary housing situation that won't be an option much longer.