Appraisal Institute's Lead Professional Designation Reviewer Hasn't Held A License In 7 Years

The Appraisal Institute markets its professional designations as symbols of elite expertise. But a new complaint claims the key person in charge of approving them hasn’t held a valid appraisal license since 2018.

The revelation is part of a complaint filed Aug. 22 against the Chicago-based nonprofit at the Illinois Department of Human Rights and first obtained by Bisnow. It is the second formal complaint filed against the agency alleging that deficiencies in its testing and review processes undermine its credibility. 

The steps to earn one of AI’s specialty designations — its best known is an MAI, or member of the Appraisal Institute — include a rigorous review of an applicant's past work conducted by a so-called experience screener. 

Jennifer Marshall, a former part-time experience screener, alleges in the latest complaint that her contract wasn’t renewed after she pointed out that AI’s sole full-time experience screener’s appraisal license had lapsed in 2018. 

Then a senior experience screener — and now the head of the program — Gilbert Valdez hasn’t had an active appraisal license since 2018, records from the California Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers show. Marshall alleges that she told AI executives that it was exposing itself to legal liability by having an unlicensed appraiser verifying the quality of work submitted as part of designation screenings.  

“To have people who aren't, in my opinion, qualified [to be experience screeners] because they no longer have a credential, it puts a huge risk on us,” Marshall told Bisnow last week. 

Valdez started at AI as a volunteer experience screener in 2000 and became a contract screener in 2010 and head experience screener in 2016, the same year he retired from his private valuation practice, according to a 2023 biography and a résumé on AI’s website. Valdez also last took a continuing education course tracked by the state in 2016, according to his public profile with the California Bureau of Real Estate Appraisers. 

On AI’s website, Valdez is listed as a member with all four of the organization's special designations, which all require an active appraisal license to obtain. Valdez didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

“We’re confident our experience review process is fair and operates with integrity,” Bill Garber, AI director of communications and marketing, said in an emailed response to a detailed list of questions, declining to comment further. 

The designations maintained by AI are badges of honor in the appraisal business, frequently added to the end of an appraiser’s name on their business cards and email signatures to flex their expertise. AI promotes the certifications, which it says are held by 8% of U.S. appraisers, as a way to increase income potential.

Valdez now leads the department that manages and sets the rules for the more than a dozen experience screeners who work on a contract basis. He reviews roughly half the designation applications, while the rest go to one of the contractors, a source familiar with the day-to-day operations of the program said. 

All contract experience screeners are required to have an active appraisal license as well as the designation they are screening an applicant for, the person said. 

Phil Crawford, a prolific appraiser who hosts a podcast about the industry, said maintaining an active license is increasingly important in today’s marketplace, with artificial intelligence rapidly transforming how appraisers do their work.

“The introduction of artificial intelligence in the work files and the work products of a lot of the commercial appraisers, keeping up with that is vital,” he said. “If someone is retired or has let their license lapse and they're not taking the correct continuing education to keep up, then that becomes a problem.” 

In an interview with Bisnow, Marshall said she first complained to management about Valdez a few months after pandemic lockdowns ended. She said senior staff dismissed her concern that his lack of a license was a violation of the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice, the reporting guidelines that are nearly ubiquitous across the field.

Part of the review for any AI designation includes ensuring that an applicant’s work complies with USPAP, but Marshall alleges that she was told by senior staff that AI was not required to be in compliance with the same guidelines. 

“I expressed concern that the Appraisal Institute, as the premier appraisal organization, was acting inconsistently with the standards its members are required to follow when completing appraisals and reviews, creating additional liability and reputational risk,” she wrote in the complaint. 

In April, she applied to run for a regional leadership position but said a contingent of AI members violated agency bylaws to ensure she didn’t get the position. Marshall, who holds two designations from AI, said the agency also never notified her that her contract had been terminated, instead learning of it through a text message exchange in July.

Instead, the leadership role went to Florida-based appraiser Reginald Carter after the selection process was “manipulated to ensure a male candidate’s success,” according to the complaint. The incident formed the basis for a sex discrimination allegation filed in Marshall’s complaint, along with a retaliation claim. 

In 2014, Valdez was one of the first appraisers to receive the newly created general review specialist designation, or GRS. His decades-long résumé includes a private appraisal business, which closed when he joined AI full time in 2016, and a textbook on apartment appraisals he wrote in 2009 for McKissock, another leading continuing education provider in the sector.

AI has faced a series of governance controversies in the last year that began after the agency’s board of directors fired CEO Cindy Chance in September 2024. Chance, a relative outsider in the insular world of appraisals who was popular among AI’s rank-and-file membership, said at the time that she was forced out because she pushed for internal reform. 

Her vocal criticisms after being ousted led local chapters to pressure executive staff to explain the decision. Chance went on to sue AI for retaliation and sexual harassment, and the suit was settled in August. 

Alissa Akins, the former director of education and publications at AI, is also suing the agency, which she alleges forced her out after she flagged that AI was misreporting test results for mandatory continuing education to state regulators.

Her suit, which is ongoing, alleges that AI failed to account for differences in state-level requirements when reporting whether a test-taker had passed or failed and instead used the same scoring across the country. 

The legal wrangling, allegations of poor oversight and internal power struggles at AI have weakened its image inside the profession. 

“Members put a lot of time, energy, effort and money into becoming an MAI,” Crawford said. “They’re some of the best appraisers in the country, and I've said many times on my show, they don't deserve this level of leadership that is on display in Chicago. It's very disappointing, and it's embarrassing for all appraisers, not just the AI members.”