Chester Underhill, 47, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced to thirty months of incarceration and three years of supervised release on his conviction of Mail Fraud.
Underhill was an unlicensed appraiser that performed appraisals using his deceased father's license. In addition, at the request of mortgage brokers, Underhill inflated the values of the properties he appraised. On average, he valued properties 82% higher than the properties' true market value, or $85,000 per property. By the government's estimate, Underhill performed approximately 1,500 fraudulent appraisals leading to an estimated total overvaluation of the properties of more than $85,000,000.
Rachel Dollar, the editor of Mortgage Fraud Blog is an attorney and Certified Mortgage Banker who handles litigation for lending institutions and secondary market investors.