Out of curiosity, and I don’t mean this pointedly. Have you ever purchased property? The assessment of appraisal doesn’t matter one way or another. You could easily be above or below it. It’s a fair market value, much like the Kelly bluebook for cars if you’re in the states (I’m uncertain if that’s a U.S. only assessor or not.) it’s a fair value of what the asset should be not the end all be all. Of course it’s the basis for taxes which is super relevant to your argument, I understand and appreciate that, but for much else it doesn’t matter.

Now let me start by stating, I think I understand where your points are. Please allow me to express the issues that I have with them and why these situations are different.

So, Jon Stewart sold his building for an obscene amount over the appraised value. There is a discrepancy among the assessed value, I see that as well. Most appraisal districts go off of a value for proposed areas plus other things like additional structures, refining of current structures (new roof, new windows, paved driveway, etc.) most offices ronco the absolute hell out of these appraisals for years. More often than not within city limits to do any of these things you have to pull permits. Pull enough of them and your house gets reappraised. This is important because the housing market will vary wildly. And yes, I’m aware that they will adjust property values yearly but they only fluctuate based on the current housing market. My guess would be (outside of money laundering that I stated earlier. I never argued the fact that it wasnt ridiculous, just that they aren’t the same.) that there has been several renovations done or a gentrification (or planned) of the neighborhood. We could speculate why it would be so high over the appraised value and I’m uncertain why there would be all the hullabaloo with reporting on it without any investigation. But I digress, selling something to someone who would have a chance to inspect the property, walk it themselves even, so they know what they are purchasing is far and away different from lying about asset values and even lying about the assets themselves to obtain better loans is fraud. On top of this there is so much about it being a victimless crime, money isn’t infinite, not without hyper inflation. Banks can’t just give endless loans. If this is a widespread practice, it takes away from the working class that try to secure loans for literally anything.

But again, the buyer who way overpaid got to go through the ringer when buying the property. The bank could have been up a creek if he didn’t pay. What happens when banks go up a creek? They get government bail outs that we have to pay for.