Irion wants certified standards for appraisers on St. Maarten

GREAT BAY--Member of Parliament Ardwell Irion used Friday’s housing debate in Parliament to raise concerns about the lack of clear standards, consistency, and oversight in the appraisal process on St. Maarten, arguing that the issue is directly affecting housing affordability, access to financing, and fairness in the property market.

Speaking during the meeting with Minister of VROMI Patrice Gumbs on a national housing policy, Irion said that while government is now presenting a housing policy, one of the major unresolved issues remains how homes and properties are being valued and how those valuations affect ordinary people trying to buy, finance, or secure housing.

Irion said he has personally seen major discrepancies in appraisals for the same property, noting that he paid for three separate appraisals on the exact same building and received significantly different results. He said the differences were not minor variations within a normal margin of error, but gaps of as much as 20 percent. In one example, he said, one appraiser could value a property at around US $300,000 while another could value the same property at US $500,000.

According to Irion, that level of inconsistency raises serious concerns about the reliability of appraisals on the island and about the wider consequences for people seeking to purchase homes or obtain financing. He argued that if St. Maarten is serious about addressing the housing crisis, then government must also address the framework under which appraisals are being conducted.

He further stated that he has seen older appraisal reports in which the same property was valued significantly higher years ago than it is today, despite being in the same condition. In one case, he said, the difference was almost US $400,000. For Irion, such disparities point to the absence of a clear and trusted standard for valuation.

The MP also questioned the fragmented way banks deal with appraisers, saying some banks accept certain appraisers while others do not. In his view, that creates further uncertainty for the public and makes the process harder to navigate. He argued that there is currently no island-wide standard governing who can appraise, what methodology should be followed, or how those reports should be treated across the financial sector.

Irion said that before government can truly claim to be tackling the housing crisis, it must establish a certified standard for appraisers and appraisal reports, developed jointly by the Ministry of VROMI and the Ministry of Finance. He said too many people are being put at a disadvantage by the current lack of uniformity and suggested that the present system leaves room for abuse and unfair outcomes.

He also raised concern about the valuation of land in development approvals, pointing to what he described as situations where appraisals appear to assign values to land in ways that local residents cannot realistically compete with. In his view, that creates an uneven playing field and raises broader questions about fairness in the housing and development market.

For Irion, the appraisal issue is not separate from the housing debate, but part of the same larger problem. He said that if government wants to talk seriously about affordability, mortgage access, and expanding home ownership, then it must also confront the lack of clear standards in the valuation process that underpins the market itself.

His remarks added another layer to Friday’s housing debate, suggesting that solving St. Maarten’s housing crisis will require more than building new homes. It will also require reforms in the systems that determine what those homes are worth and whether ordinary people can reasonably afford them.

‍