I refinanced my house over the weekend. There was an ugly surprise. The closing costs were $1300 more than on the good faith estimate. The new costs were all associated with the lender (not the mortgage broker). The mortgage broker says that his company recently started working with the lender, and didn’t know that these fees would be thrown in. FWIW, I believe him.
What is reasonable here? I am not surprised if estimates are off by a few hundred dollars, but this seems excessive. Who is the right person to ask/pursue about this? The State Attorney General? The lender? Hire a lawyer? I doubt I can get all that money back, but I hope if I make a stink with some regulatory body if I can get them to refund part of it, just to make me go away.
I’m not an expert, but from reading the saturday real estate section of the paper, here is a suggestion:
- go through the actual charges and make sure they’re for actual work. If the charges are “miscellaneous whatever” that are vague, press the lender for a detailed explanation and if he/she can’t explain to your satisfaction, insist the charge be dropped. It could be that the lender is unscrupulous and is taking advantage of the vast amount of paperwork you need to sign, that the charge will be overlooked and paid. From what I’ve gathered over time, each charge must result in something tangible, lawyer’s fees, recording fees, etc.
Again, I’m not an expert, but you could start the process there. Hope this helps.
In my experience (two mortgages and five refinances), the GFE was always very accurate, sometimes to the penny. Your mortgage broker has no excuse. If the new lender has different fees he should find out what they are so he can issue accurate GFEs.
The closing agent should have explained to you that you can back out of the loan within 72 hours. If you don’t want to pay the extra fees, cancel the loan and start over with someone who is more competent.