Effective: July 27, 2026 · Version 4.0
The short version: You run the appraisal management: your panel, your appraisers, your fees, your QC, your lender relationships. We provide the software. If you turn on payment services, we collect from your lenders and borrowers and pay your appraisers strictly as your agent, in your name, from your funds, on your instructions, including charging your lenders on your behalf, which you confirm you're authorized to have us do. 1099s go out under your name, never ours. This summary is for convenience; the agreement below controls.
This agreement is between Appraisaldesk.com, LLC ("Appraisal Desk," "we") and the appraisal management company or lender's internal appraisal desk department accepting it ("you"), effective when you accept it, by checkbox, click, or signature. The Terms of Use also apply; this agreement wins over them if they conflict.
We provide software. You provide appraisal management. For every order you manage, you (not we) are responsible for:
Engagement letters, invoices, and order documents for your orders issue under your name and branding. The USPAP "client" is your lender client and/or you as its agent, never us.
You hold and will keep every state AMC registration your business requires (or a valid exemption), with proof on request. Don't manage orders where you're not registered or exempt. Tell us within 2 business days if a registration lapses or is suspended or revoked; we may pause your new orders in that state until cured, not to supervise you, but because we won't facilitate unregistered activity.
Upload your appraiser terms before your first order and keep them current; they govern everything between you and your appraisers (scope, fees, payment timing, insurance, indemnity). The platform shows them to each appraiser before their first order from you, links the governing version on every order, and logs acceptances. You may also host your lender agreement with us; that's optional, and your lender relationships are yours whether you host the document here or not. Your documents are yours: we don't draft, review, enforce, or take responsibility for them. Never represent that we are the engaging party, the payor, or an AMC. (In-platform guidance describes what your documents should typically cover.)
You pay the platform fees we agree on, recorded in the platform and shown to you at or before order initiation: flat, per-order charges, never a percentage of an appraisal fee, negotiated per AMC on arm's-length market terms (Home Base pays on the same basis as any unaffiliated AMC; no special deal in either direction). Platform fees are your responsibility, not your lenders'. How you account for them in your own pricing is your business, but if you recover them through your fee structure, your appraiser compensation must remain customary and reasonable.
How you pay us (your choice, set per lender partnership): (a) from order funds: we deduct our earned fees from amounts held for you in the client funds account, documented per order; or (b) billed separately: invoices due in 10 days, and/or automatic billing at the end of each week charged to your bank account on file. ACH authorization: if you choose bank-account billing, you authorize us to initiate ACH debits to your designated account for platform fees and other amounts you owe under this agreement, recurring (weekly or per invoice) and as-needed, in varying amounts, until you revoke in writing; keep the account funded, and failed debits may carry processor costs. Late undisputed amounts accrue 1.5%/month; we can suspend access after 45+ days past due with notice; standing-fee changes take 30 days' notice.
a. Appointment. You appoint us your limited payment collection agent, solely to accept appraisal-related payments from your lenders and borrowers on your behalf, and your limited disbursement agent, solely to pay appraisers and other order amounts for you, in your name, from your funds, on your instructions or your configured payment rules. We accept. This is the only agency between us, and it makes us neither an appraisal management company nor a money transmitter: we collect your receivables as your agent and pay your vendor invoices from your funds; we never move money between strangers or hold it as our own.
b. Payment to us is payment to you. Money a lender or borrower pays us under this section counts as received by you the moment we (or our processor) receive it: it settles their debt to you, and they bear no risk of loss if we fail to remit. Their recourse for that is against us, and so is yours. You'll hold us out as your collection agent on invoices, receipts, and payment pages ("collected by Appraisal Desk as agent for [your company name]").
c. Charging your lenders and borrowers: your authority, your responsibility. We charge your lenders and their borrowers only on your instructions and on your behalf. You confirm that, for every lender you have us bill, you have the lender's agreement or authorization to be billed this way (through your lender agreement or otherwise). Many lenders never use our platform, so that authority comes from you, not from us. If a lender or borrower disputes a charge we made per your instructions, that dispute is yours to resolve, and you'll cover us for it (Section 7). Failed payments, chargebacks, and their processor costs belong to you or the responsible lender per your arrangements; recovery runs through your configured payment rules with notice to you. Refunds and cancellations follow your policy shown on the order; we execute your instruction. Don't instruct a borrower charge before intent-to-proceed.
d. Where the money sits. Collected funds flow through licensed payment processors (currently including Authorize.net and Mercury Payments for cards, and Plaid-initiated ACH for bank debits) into a dedicated holding account used only for client funds, separate from our operating money, tracked per-AMC in a ledger. Only disbursements, refunds, processor charges, and our earned, per-order-recorded fees leave it. Never our operating expenses. Where supported, card payments can settle directly to your own merchant account, making you the merchant of record.
e. No discretion, no guarantees. You set fees, approve reports, and authorize every release (directly or via your rules); we execute. We don't advance money, extend credit, or guarantee payment to you or any appraiser. If collected funds are short, funding the payment is your obligation.
f. Taxes file under your name. For amounts we disburse to your appraisers by ACH or check, you are the payor of record: you set the fees, approve the work, and authorize the payments; our role is clerical (Treas. Reg. § 1.6041-1(e)). Appraisers submit one W-9 through the platform (via our accounts-payable provider), reusable across AMCs. Each year you choose: (i) we file 1099-NECs under your name and EIN as your filing agent, for the recorded service fee, or (ii) we give you a year-end payee report and you file your own. The payer on the form is always you. (Card-network payments follow the separate 1099-K rules.) You're responsible for the accuracy of amounts and payee info you approve.
g. Paying appraisers. With payment services on, appraiser payment releases automatically when the lender accepts the completed report. That's how automated payments work; there is no manual release. If you want a different model, opt out of automated payments for an order (or for all orders) and handle payment yourself. Either way, state prompt-payment deadlines are yours to meet: most states require AMC payment within 30 to 60 days of report delivery, regardless of when your lender pays or accepts. If a lender is slow to accept, opt that order out and pay the appraiser directly. Dispute holds require your written notice to the appraiser through the platform.
Your order data and appraisal reports are yours as between you and us (rights among you, your lenders, and appraisers follow your own agreements); we hold the operating license and de-identified analytics rights in the Terms of Use. Each side keeps a written security program and notifies the other within 72 hours of discovering a confirmed breach of the other's data. On termination, export your data for 60 days; completed-order history is retained per the Terms of Use, and your own record-keeping obligations depend on it.
You cover us against third-party claims arising from: your appraisal management services and the appraisals on your orders (including negligence, USPAP, bias, and repurchase claims); your documents and your disputes with appraisers or lenders; your legal violations; charges we made to lenders or borrowers per your instructions; and the fee amounts and payment instructions you approve.
We cover you against third-party claims arising from: the platform infringing someone's IP; a security breach we caused; our failure to pass on money we actually received for you; and our legal violations in running the platform.
The Terms of Use liability cap applies, except our duty to pay over funds held for you is never capped.
One year, auto-renewing unless either side gives 60 days' notice. Termination for uncured material breach (30 days), immediately for insolvency or loss of a required license. In-flight orders finish under this agreement; held funds pay out; Sections 3 (last sentence), 5(b), 5(f) for the applicable year, 6, and 7 survive.
Independent companies; no partnership, joint venture, or subcontractor relationship; the only agency is Section 5. Utah law; disputes per the Terms of Use (AAA arbitration, Salt Lake City; no class actions). Disclosure: Appraisal Desk and Home Base Appraisal Management are under common ownership; Home Base signs this same agreement and pays platform fees on the same arm's-length basis as unaffiliated AMCs.