Engagement
How this works, what it costs, and what happens when the scope moves. Written down before you ask.
How engagements are priced
Assessments and program builds are fixed-fee. The fee is quoted in the statement of work against a defined scope and does not change because the work turned out to be harder than I estimated. Retainers are a fixed monthly amount with a six-month minimum and a thirty-day exit.
There is no hourly billing on a defined scope. Hourly exists only as the mechanism for work you add after the scope is signed, and the rate for that is stated in your statement of work before you sign it.
What is published and what is not
Every fee is quoted against a defined scope. A governance build for a fifteen-person appraisal firm and one for a multi-state non-QM originator are not the same work, and publishing a single number would just mean quoting the higher one to both.
You will have a fee before you have a proposal to review. I do not run a discovery process whose purpose is to find out what you can afford.
The engagement sequence
- A conversation. Twenty to thirty minutes. What prompted the call, what is actually at risk, and whether this is something I should be working on. If it is not, I will say so.
- A written scope. Objectives, documents required, access level, deliverables, timeline, fixed fee, and what is expressly out of scope.
- Signature and deposit. Fifty percent on signing, non-refundable. The clock starts at deposit receipt, not at signature.
- The work. Document collection, review, findings. Delays in document collection toll the timeline, and that is in the scope so it is never a surprise.
- Delivery and readout. Written findings, then a live session with the people who have to act on them.
Scope changes
The fee does not change unless you change the work, by adding entities or channels to the review, introducing an issue that was out of scope, expanding the period or the sample, accelerating an agreed deadline, or requiring an approval process that was not disclosed at scoping. Any of those produces a written change order with its own fee and its own date before any additional work begins. There are no surprise invoices, and there is no line item you did not agree to in advance.
System access levels
| Level | What it means | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1. Documents only | Redacted documents delivered through secure transfer. No system credentials of any kind. | Assessments, policy reviews, gap analyses |
| Level 2. Read-only systems | A named, auditable, read-only account. Time-boxed, with the deprovisioning date written into the scope of work. | Readiness assessments, program builds, conversions |
| Level 3. Embedded | A named account, possibly on your domain, listed as a designated subject-matter expert. Full third-party risk onboarding. | Fractional retainers only |
Data handling
I do not need borrower personally identifiable information and I do not ask for it. Collateral packages are reviewed redacted or under the engagement letter. Nothing is retained after an engagement closes, and I issue a written deletion certification at close. System access is named, read-only, time-boxed, and deprovisioned on a date written into the scope of work rather than whenever someone remembers.
Everything I have built for an employer or a client belongs to them, which is why none of it is on this website. That is not me being vague about the work, ask, and I will walk you through sanitized examples the same way an appraiser shows you a sample report. The rule is simply that it never gets published. It is the rule that will protect yours.
Independence and conflicts
I hold no panel, take no order volume, and receive no revenue from any appraisal management company, valuation vendor, or technology provider, not a referral fee, not a reseller margin, not a commission. I do not accept contingent-fee engagements of any kind. Every engagement begins with a conflict check against current and recent clients, and if it turns something up I will tell you before you have spent anything.
The vendor packet
Listed here so a vendor risk officer can see the practice is procurable before anyone has to ask.
- Mutual non-disclosure agreement, on my paper or yours
- Master engagement letter and per-engagement statement of work
- W-9 for Wiley Valuation Advisory LLC
- Data-handling statement
- One-page capability statement
The first conversation is a conversation, not a pitch. Tell me what prompted it and I will tell you whether it is something I should be working on.
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