Banks fault appraiser crackdown

When Erin Toll became director of the Colorado Division of Real Estate in 2006, she vowed to crack down on appraisers who artificially inflated home values, a practice that many believe contributed to the foreclosure crisis.

But rural community bankers say the division’s hard-line approach has brought real estate-backed lending to a “screeching halt” in some remote areas of the state, and some worry that it may impede country banks’ efforts to participate in federal stimulus programs.