Appraiser was given a repair bid from contractor from prior appraisal

So we're almost at the end of the home buying process, (not our first), but the appraisal has me annoyed.

We won a house at auction, signed contracts. With our first lender we paid for the appraisal, it's 2 weeks late, appraiser recommends repairs to be made and underwriter required all. Seller won't fix anything and first lender doesn't do rehab, so we picked a new lender.

Talked to the new lender about repairs needed and they said no problem, we can do a repair escrow. Paid for a second appraisal because they said they can't use another lender's appraisal, fine. Loan officer asks for all financials, even a contractors repair bid based on our first appraisal just to get the ball rolling (used him before for other projects and he did it from photos only). Second appraisal comes back and the loan officer gave the new appraiser, the repair bid from the old appraisal we were told they can't use, it was scanned in as a page in the appraisal.

So in my mind, the new appraiser did not have an unbiased opinion. Is this normal? Legal (ridiculous)? I ask because now the underwriter is requiring everything on the repair bid and more. We're doing much of the work ourselves and our contractor will bill us low so we get most of our cash back, but it just seems shady when the job of the appraiser is to give their unbiased opinion independent of the transaction. And I'm annoyed my cash will be tied up in escrow for nearly a month.

We are already past the closing date, so really trying to push this through, but any thoughts? Talk to the loan officer or call the appraisal company? Stop worrying about it since the contractor is willing to work with us to get our money back?

submitted by /u/silentsnow52
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/ckhswv/appraiser_was_given_a_repair_bid_from_contractor/