Are You Ready For Some RESPA Reform?

The major components of the new RESPA reform are the new and substantially revised Good Faith Estimate (GFE), in which lenders disclose loan and closing costs to borrowers, and the HUD-1 Settlement Statement, which is a detailed financial breakdown of the entire real estate transaction signed at closing.
Highlights of the new changes include:
Borrowers must receive a standard GFE disclosing key loan terms, including the loan’s terms; whether the interest rate is fixed or otherwise; any prepayment penalties and/or balloon payments; and total closing costs.
Lenders must provide borrowers with a standard origination charge for the loan which must include all points, appraisal, credit, and application fees, administrative, lender inspection, wire, and document preparation fees
Lenders have the option of providing borrowers with a list of approved service providers such as closing attorneys and title insurance companies.
A tolerance range has been specified for various categories of loan/closing costs to prevent unnecessary escalation of promised vs. actual charges.
Fees quoted for lender origination charge cannot change.
Fees for title and closing costs where the lender selects the provider or where the borrower selects the provider from the lender’s approved list cannot change by more than 10%.
Fees that borrowers can shop for themselves can increase (or decrease) by any amount.
The final page of the GFE contains worksheet-like charges to compare different loans and terms that the borrower can use to shop pricing.
Controversial lender payments to mortgage brokers, known as yield-spread premiums, must be disclosed in a standard manner.
The charges quoted on the GFE are then carried over to the HUD-1 Settlement Statement to ensure that the prescribed tolerances are met. More info