An existing commercial appraisal can be up to six months old at closing, and not a day older. That is the outer wall. Inside it there are two earlier lines that cost money and time: an outside appraisal more than three months old needs a current interior inspection, and an existing report more than four months old triggers a reinspection of the property by an approved vendor. The clock does not run to your application date, your term sheet, or the day underwriting cleared the file. It runs to the closing date.
That last detail is the one that ruins deals. A borrower hands over an appraisal that is three months old at application, assumes it is comfortably fresh, and then the deal drags. A tenant estoppel takes four weeks. A title exception takes three. By the time the file is clear to close, the report is five and a half months old, and the borrower is paying for an inspection nobody budgeted for, on a timeline nobody planned for, with the outside chance that the number comes back different and the loan they were quoted is not the loan they get.
This page is about that clock. What starts it, what it runs to, what each tier requires, and how to sequence a slow deal so the report does not age out mid-process.
The age tiers, exactly as written
The Fiirm's SBC guidelines treat appraisal age in a single short section called Age of Report. Here is what it actually says, tier by tier.
| Age of the report | What the guidelines require |
|---|---|
| Dated within six months before the new loan's closing date | Subject to internal review, an existing appraisal may be accepted |
| Outside (third-party) appraisal more than three months old | At a minimum, a current interior property inspection |
| Existing report more than four months old | May require an interior/exterior property inspection by an approved vendor. Does not apply to third-party (outside) appraisals |
| More than six months old at closing | Not accepted |
| Expiration lands on a weekend or holiday | Expiration extends to the next two business days |
Two conditions sit alongside the age tiers and are just as capable of killing a report that is otherwise young enough. First, the report must be addressed to another Lender. Second, reports prepared for the Borrower's benefit are not accepted at all — at any age.
That second rule catches more borrowers than the age rules do. If you commissioned an appraisal yourself — a partnership buyout, an estate valuation, a property tax appeal — that report is not a candidate for reuse no matter how recent it is. It was prepared for you. The age tiers never come into play.
What counts as an "existing appraisal"
The definition is broader than most borrowers expect. Under the guidelines, an existing appraisal is any appraisal not ordered by The Fiirm — even if the appraiser who wrote it is on the approved vendor list.
That closes the loophole people reach for. Brokers sometimes assume a report from an approved appraiser is effectively a lender report and the age rules relax. They do not. The test is not who wrote it — it is who ordered it. A report from an approved appraiser that someone else ordered is still an existing appraisal: still subject to the six-month wall, still required to be addressed to another Lender, still subject to internal review.
What starts the clock, and what it runs to
The clock starts at the effective date of the report — the date on the appraisal itself — and it runs to the closing date of the new loan.
This is the single most useful thing on this page, and it is the thing most often gotten wrong. Borrowers and brokers measure appraisal age against submission. The guidelines measure it against closing. Every day between those two points is a day of the report's life being spent on your file, and none of them are recoverable.
A worked version: a report dated March 1 is fresh at a May 15 application, inside every tier. Close on June 20 and it is past the three-month mark — if it is an outside appraisal, a current interior inspection is required. Slip to July 20 and it is past four months, with the reinspection provision in play. Slip to September 5 and the report is dead. Not inspected, not updated. Dead. Six months from March 1 was September 1, and the weekend-and-holiday grace buys you up to the next two business days, not a week.
The July 2026 change
Until mid-2026, the four-month provision read as a discretionary one. The guideline text still carries that phrasing — an existing appraisal report more than four months old may require an interior/exterior property inspection by an approved vendor.
The change log tightens it. Effective 07/10/2026, the entry reads: a reinspection will be required for any existing report older than four months. The change was published with the 8/3/2026 guideline release but carries an effective date of 07/10/2026, and the release states that changes marked this way apply retroactively to loans with application dates prior to 07/10/2026.
Treat four months as a hard planning assumption, not a maybe. Both point the same direction; the change log is the more definite and the newer instruction. Plan for the reinspection at four months and be pleasantly surprised if the file does not need one.
Reinspection, interior inspection, new report — which one you get
The guidelines describe three distinct outcomes, and they are not interchangeable.
Interior/exterior property inspection by an approved vendor. This is the four-month trigger for an existing report. Someone approved goes to the property, inside and out, and reports what is there now. The guidelines do not describe this as a new opinion of value — it is an inspection.
Current interior property inspection. This is the three-month floor for an outside (third-party) appraisal, and the guidelines set it as a minimum, which leaves room for more. Note the asymmetry: the four-month interior/exterior requirement is written not to apply to third-party outside appraisals, but outside appraisals carry their own, earlier, interior-inspection trigger at three months. Outside reports are held to the shorter clock.
A new report. Past six months, there is no inspection that rescues the file. The guidelines do not offer an update, a recertification, or an extension for a report older than six months. It is not accepted. The only path forward is a new appraisal ordered the way the guidelines require it to be ordered — which is the next section, and it is where the timeline gets expensive.
You cannot order the replacement yourself
This is where a borrower who has just lost a report to the calendar loses another week.
Appraisals must be ordered through an Appraisal Management Company. Mortgage brokers and approved Correspondent Lenders are allowed to place the order through the approved AMCs — but appraisals ordered by the broker or borrower directly are not acceptable. Where the mortgage broker places the order, The Fiirm is the Client and the owner of the appraisal report. For Correspondent Lending partners, the partner is the Client and is listed as the Lender in the report.
So the sequence when a report ages out is: the order goes through an approved AMC, the AMC issues the engagement letter carrying the required scope of work, the appraiser performs to that scope. A borrower who reacts to an expired appraisal by calling an appraiser directly and paying for a report has bought a document that cannot be used — it is an existing appraisal prepared for the Borrower's benefit, which the guidelines do not accept at any age.
A new report can mean a different number — and a different loan
The cost of an aged-out appraisal is not only the fee and the delay. It is the value.
Every commercial appraisal on an SBC file goes to a Real Estate Analyst — a State Certified General Real Estate Appraiser — for a thorough desk review. In some cases a limited review is performed instead, based on loan size or loan type. The review covers quality of content and compliance with USPAP and FIRREA.
That review can move the number. Where an existing appraisal comes from an appraiser with no history with The Fiirm, the report may still be accepted in limited cases; if it is deemed acceptable but there is a minimal difference in value opinion between the report and the analyst's conclusions, the analyst's opinion sets the internal value — and that internal value will not be set higher than the appraised value. It can only move down.
Then the internal value feeds LTV. Maximum allowable LTV is calculated on the lower of the internal value from appraisal review, the adjusted sales price net of material credits, or the appraised value. A lower value is a lower LTV ceiling, which is less proceeds, which on a refinance can mean the payoff no longer works.
And LTV feeds price. On the 5-year product, the initial rate is fixed on issuance of the Letter of Intent and holds until the Closing Date — but the guidelines are explicit that the final rate may be affected by an increase or decrease in LTV, among other changes. A replacement appraisal that lands lower does not just shrink the loan. It can reprice it.
Sequencing a slow deal so the report survives
The practical work is arithmetic done early, at application, not discovered in week nine.
Write down the report's effective date and count forward. Mark three months, four months, and six months on a calendar. Those are your three checkpoints. Do this on day one, in writing, where the broker and the borrower can both see it.
Set the target closing date against the six-month date, not against your optimism. If the six-month date is September 1 and your realistic close is mid-August, you have two weeks of slack for a deal whose average slippage is four. That is not slack. That is a plan to order a new report.
Decide early whether you are reusing or ordering. A borrower at four and a half months who is three weeks from clear-to-close is fine. The same borrower with an unresolved title exception and a missing estoppel is better served ordering a new appraisal through the AMC now than paying for a reinspection and losing the report anyway.
Front-load the slow conditions. The items that eat a commercial timeline are third-party: title commitment and exceptions, survey where the title company will not remove survey exceptions without a current one, leases and estoppels, environmental where required, entity documents. None of them move faster because an appraisal is expiring. Start them the day the file opens.
Do not try to solve a value problem by talking to the appraiser. Under the guidelines, no employee other than a representative of the Real Estate Department is permitted to contact the appraiser for any reason, and differences of opinion are discussed with the appraiser through the AMC. Concerns from anyone else route through the Real Estate Department. A broker calling the appraiser directly does not accelerate anything.
When reusing an old report is the wrong instinct
There is a class of deal where chasing an existing appraisal is a false economy even when the report is comfortably inside six months.
A report addressed to another Lender was written to that lender's scope of work, not The Fiirm's. The guidelines require the appraiser to use The Fiirm's scope in valuing the subject and to provide detail on all relevant approaches to value. A report built for a different scope may survive review, or it may come back with gaps the analyst cannot fill from the desk. If the property has changed — a unit turned over, a capital expenditure completed, a tenant vacated — an older report describes a property that no longer exists, and the reinspection will say so.
And if any portion of the property involves illegal or unpermitted units, an older report will not save you: those units are not included as revenue or in value, and the file cannot proceed unless the illegal portion is removed or permitted. A borrower reusing an old appraisal is often reusing it because they liked the number — and the number may rest on square footage the guidelines will not count.
What this page does not do
It does not price anything. The guidelines set the age tiers and the inspection triggers; they do not state what an appraisal or an inspection costs, who pays, or how long either takes. Anyone quoting a fee or a turnaround from this page is quoting from somewhere else.
It does not promise acceptance. Every path here runs through "subject to internal review." A report inside six months, addressed to another Lender, from an approved appraiser, can still fail review.
It does not describe an update or recertification pathway, because the guidelines do not describe one. Past six months, plan on a new report.
It does not set a separate shelf life for a report ordered through the AMC on your own file. The Age of Report section is written for existing appraisals — reports The Fiirm did not order — and the guidelines do not publish a distinct expiration schedule for reports ordered for the subject transaction. If your file is aging and the report is one The Fiirm ordered, ask before you assume either way.
And it is not a credit decision. Appraisal age is one input among property type, tier, occupancy, DSCR, seasoning, LTV and borrower credit. A perfectly fresh appraisal does not make an ineligible property eligible.
If you have an existing report and a deal that is starting to drag, the useful conversation is a short one: what is the effective date, what is the realistic closing date, and how many of those three checkpoints fall in between.
Guideline SBC 08/03/2026 · Reviewed August 31, 2026
Published August 31, 2026 · Updated August 31, 2026
How to use this guide
This article is educational guidance, not an offer or commitment to lend. Rules, property facts, credit, leverage, documentation, and full underwriting still control any actual scenario.