The Texas Appraiser Licensing and Certification Board votes Friday on whether to send out for public comment a rewrite of eleven rules governing appraisal management companies — the firms that stand between a mortgage lender and the appraiser who decides what a house is worth.
Federal law after the 2008 crash generally keeps lenders from choosing appraisers themselves, so a lender hires a management company, which keeps a roster of licensed appraisers, hands out the assignments, reviews the reports and pays the bill. It is a small industry in Texas and shrinking: 163 registrations, down from 172 four years ago, with three new ones issued so far this fiscal year and seven complaints received.
The board’s own meeting packet is not posted, but the same draft sits in the July 15 materials of the advisory committee that wrote it. Three changes stand out. The draft adds a new ground for discipline covering any other act relating to the business that the board, in its discretion, believes warrants suspension or revocation. It extends discipline to a company’s controlling person, not just the company and its named contact. And it replaces a one-line test for what makes a violation “serious” with a three-part test plus a list — fraud, identity theft, unlicensed activity, ethics violations, interference with an appraiser’s independence. Penalty minimums do not change, but the sanctions grid keys off that split, so more conduct routes into the harsher tiers.
Two smaller provisions carry money. Companies would have to notify the board when their roster changes, and a new definition would count appraisers kept on hand for possible future assignments as roster members — which matters because the board charges per appraiser, and because a fifteen-appraiser threshold decides whether a company must register at all.
The rest of the agenda: a companion proposal on appraiser fees whose contents are not public; a four-year extension of the advisory committee that produced the package; two final enforcement orders that took effect in June; and a presentation from the national foundation that sets appraiser qualifications, whose June draft would scrap the college-degree requirement for certified appraisers. Comments on that one close August 30. Friday’s vote only starts the Texas comment period; adoption would come later.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 9:00 a.m. CT Friday, August 7, 2026. The board meets four times a year; the next is November 6.
- Where
- Stephen F. Austin Building, Room 170, 1700 North Congress Avenue, Austin 78701. In person only — no teleconference line is noticed.
- Governing body & chair
- Texas Appraiser Licensing and Certification Board — four appraisers and four public members appointed by the Governor, plus one ex officio. R. Chance Bolton, chair. Chelsea Buchholtz is executive director.
- Format
- In person. General comment from visitors on non-agenda items is item 4. Contact: Amber Hinton, 512-936-3001.
- Live video
- Not advertised. The board routinely posts recordings to its YouTube channel afterward, with minutes hyperlinked to points in the video.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · TALCB meeting page (agenda not posted there as of Thursday)
Board members
- R. Chance Bolton — chair; appraiser member. Named chair May 2025.
- Martha Gayle Reid Lynch — vice chair; appraiser member. Elected February 2026.
- Rolando Castro — secretary; appraiser member. Elected February 2026.
- Mark Luna — appraiser member; appointed 2025.
- John H. Eichelberger III — public member.
- Paola Escalante-Castillo — public member.
- Clayton Ripley, CPA — public member; appointed 2025.
- Stephanie Robinson, Ph.D. — public member; reappointed 2025.
- Mark McAnally — ex officio member, for the Veterans Land Board.
Roster: About the Board. The agency publishes no hometowns for members, so cities are omitted here rather than guessed. Agency head: Chelsea Buchholtz, Executive Director, who runs both this board and the Texas Real Estate Commission.