You can always contact the state's real estate appraiser regulatory agency to find out more about an appraiser (or to report suspected fraud).

That means there are many additional regulatory requirements they need to meet.

Seller was just starting to think of selling.Are there any covenants, caveats or any regulatory restrictions on the property?

What is everyone thoughts on this? Is this going to cause another housing bubble?

And then, there's Dodd Frank and all the rest of that regulatory junk.

This really is the fastest way to get into the business unless you have buckets of money where you can post your own bonding, self insure, have cash reserves and meet regulatory requirements.

What might have been acceptable for them to give you on a loan might have changed over the years due to regulatory reform.

If not, then you need to decide whether you will contravene the zoning bylaw or allocate the space to a different purpose.After the regulatory question in satisfied, what you do with the basement space becomes a math question ... what will yield the highest return to your business ... do you split the basement and apportion it amongst the existing ground floor units?  

The other is that the lender is not on the hook for more than the remaining loan balance, but the entire net worth of the owner / ownership entity could be lost due to a lawsuit or regulatory enforcement action. 

Sorry, but it would take one to get folks on the right track.I guess people have no idea of how much input goes into forming regulatory law from the industry, regulators, and even public comment before the politicians simply bless what has been formulated and proposed, all the politicians do is ask questions, gather support and vote, their staff only concludes the administrative side.