Fees paid during a home buying process are at risk? Every now and again a loan does not make it to closing. Common reasons for this are home inspection issues that cannot be resolved or a condo that cannot be approved. Unfortunately, some of these issues arise and cause a deal to cancel after some services have already been performed and therefore have to be paid for. And this is where debate will sometimes arise. The debate is related to fees paid during the home buying process.
Sometimes a client will be surprised that they are responsible for paying any fees at all when an attempted home purchase fails. After all, they have done nothing wrong. They moved forward with due diligence and good faith. Why should they have to pay for anything? But most times homebuyers understand there are some sunk costs when attempting to buy a home.
A story from Zillow
I saw a post in the Zillow mortgage forum. A potential homebuyer felt the lender should have known a condo he was trying to buy was not able to be approved as soon as possible. He felt the lender should refund his appraisal fee for not knowing this before the appraisal was completed. Some realtors responded on this forum that they felt the lender should reimburse the potential homebuyer’s appraisal fee.
To say the news about problems with a condo should have been uncovered early is simply being unaware of the entire process. It suggests people do not know in what order things take place.
There are a lot of moving parts as to the order of a loan process and how fast a loan goes.
For example:
How fast did the consumer apply from the date of contract ratification?
Did the consumer sign their loan disclosures quickly?
When supporting documents were requested did the consumer provide them quickly? And completely?
Most importantly, how fast did the property manager respond to the lender’s request for the condo information?
The condo questionnaire, budget and any other related condo documents are needed for the lender to make a determination on the condo approval. Then and only then should the lender be able to make a decision on the condo approval.
If the lender had the condo documents back for a long time and did not notice that condo had problems, that is a problem. To then let the appraisal get turned in, and then let the condo get rejected, that is a problem. The consumer should not get charged for the appraisal. The lender delayed things, and should be responsible.
What if an appraisal is completed before the condo documents are received? Then the consumer is dealing with an excellent lender who moves quickly. That is a lender gets the appraiser out to the subject property as soon as possible. This is to meet the demands of the sales contract. Specifically the appraisal contingency deadline. Realtors would be screaming if the appraisal was not done within the contractually required time periods. These are the same realtors who would say the lender is at fault and should give you your money back.
Can you have it both ways?
You can’t have it both ways. Work with an efficient lender who keeps you contractually compliant and wants to get you to the settlement table on time. Or work with someone who moves slowly and puts you at contractual risk of being in breach of contract, but maybe allows you to save a little bit of money on the appraisal if the deal does not work out.
Even had if the lender received all the condo documents and condo questionnaire back from the property manager early before the appraisal was completed, there is an issue. By that time usually the appraiser will have at least been out to inspect the property. What if you cancel an appraisal order after the property has been inspected but before the appraisal itself is completed? You’re still going to pay the bulk of the appraisal fee to cover the physical inspection of the property. I canceled an appraisal after the appraiser had already been out to the home. But they still charged $275 out of a $400 fee. And I only saved the client $125 by canceling the appraisal early after uncovering a condo problem.
Do you have to spend money when attempting to buy a house?
Are you not willing to risk some money when buying a home? Then you need to pay to have the condo questionnaire and all the condo documents delivered before you write an offer. That costs anywhere from $100-$250 to get all of that for most condos. So you’re still putting money at risk. In many business transactions you’re going to have to put a little money at risk to do some things to do your due diligence to vet the deal. It’s just the nature of business.
Shouldn’t the seller of a condo know if there is a problem?
It is not common for a seller or listing agent to vet his or her own condo listing when listing it for sale. I think they should. But what I think and what the marketplace does are often not in agreement.
I just did a condo loan where the listing agent lived in the building, had a listing in the building, and had no idea there was litigation against the condo! And litigation is a problem when getting a loan. Turns out the lawsuit was a nuisance suit. So we approved the loan, but the buyer could have lost appraisal fees, condo questionnaire fees, and home inspection fees had we not been able to do the loan. So who would have been at fault in this case? The seller? The listing agent? We as the lender? The buyer agent? The answer is none of the above. If you want to avoid wasting money, then a condo buyer has to do as much homework as possible and ask a lot of questions. And maybe even pay to get a condo questionnaire done in advance of making an offer.
What if you “have” to waive all contingencies?
In San Francisco a realtor told me that you cannot have any contingencies if you want your offer accepted. None at all. So what is a condo buyer to do? If you are going to waive your financing contingency, you better know the condo is warrantable. The buyer agent my buyers worked with was amazing, and did a lot of research on each condo the buyers looked at before making an offer. We basically underwrote and warranted each condo before they even wrote an offer. It’s possible to do and maybe that is what each buyer needs to do on condos to avoid wasting time and money? It would be nice if listing agents did this leg work each time so the pool of buyers knew if there were problems.
Focused on saving money? Do the advance homework through your realtor or lender on a condo before writing an offer. Then fees paid during a home buying process may be saved.
Contact me to discuss a condo, mortgage rates, or other mortgage questions. Click here to schedule a call. Or you can email me directly.
Brian Martucci is a loan officer for Capital Bank Home Loans, a division of Capital Bank, N.A. He has been in the mortgage industry since 1986 and has served in a number of roles, including loan processor, loan officer, mortgage broker, branch manager, and vice president. Brian Martucci – NMLS# 185421. His opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Capital Bank Home Loans or Capital Bank. Capital Bank, N.A.- NMLS# 401599. Click here for the Capital Bank, N.A. “Privacy Policy”.
So if I switch lenders and the lender canceled the appraisal but appraiser already did an inspection who pays for that fee? The buyer or lender
The buyer is responsible for all fees for their application. If the appraisal was canceled but the appraiser is still collecting an inspection fee because they went to the house, the buyer is responsible to pay that fee.
In the same subject, I have a question. I was working with a lender to refinance a couple properties.I was pre-approved. I submitted all the require documents on time and we had a closing date schedule. A week before the closing, they deleted all my documents and went silent. After a few emails and phone calls, I finally received a letter in the mail saying it was denied. The COVID changed the requirements and now they finally told me that I needed a letter from my employer assuring them that my job is secure. I have 23 years with the same employer and the employer did send them a letter. Yet they again went silent. I gave up on the Refi with them, yet I would like my $625 reimbursed, fee I paid fir one of the properties to be appraised. I didn’t changed anything since the day I fill up the application. The the property was appraised higher than expected. My FICA score went up, and I did not incurred in any debt.,I feel that they changed their mind in light of the COVID, or someone jumped ahead and order the appraisal too soon. Therefore I feel entitled to be reimbursed fir the appraisal. Am I wrong to expect it? What resources do I have. Please shade me some light. It is not fair. Thank you very much. I remain…
If you start an application and the appraisal was done I’m afraid you have to pay for it. But what they do owe you is a detailed explanation of why the lan was rejected. If they haven’t given you that, it is owed to you. I would contact them back and ask to speak to the branch manager and ask for detailed reasons on why your loan was denied. Good luck.
Our situation, we made the “mistake” of paying the appraisal fee to the appraiser used through the lender via credit card during the initial process of securing the loan. Then the purchase deal fell through during the inspection period because the inspection uncovered a major electrical problem and the buyers refused to address it. We informed the lender to stop the appraisal as soon as we discovered the problem. Now we are being told it’s the full appraisal fee “once it hits the appraisers desk.” The appraisal was not completed to our knowledge. We understand we can dispute the charge with our credit card company, but we also don’t wish to damage our relationship with this otherwise favorable lender moving forward (though we won’t pay an appraiser in the future until after inspection). Do we have good ground to stand on if we push back against this issue in principle, and is it worth losing the lender over and start shopping lenders again? Thank you.
Hello Galen. I am afraid you likely do not have much choice but to pay for the appraisal in advance. The market seems to be such a sellers market everywhere that they write very short/tight timelines into the contract for the appraisal contingency, the financing contingency, and the closing date. This is not the fault of your lender, they were just trying to meet the timelines in the contract. And if you write your next contract with lengthy timelines to allow for ordering the appraisal “after” the inspection, your contract won’t be competitive and your offer not accepted.
For example, if you think you can get a home inspection in 7 days, and then an appraisal in 15 days, and loan approval in 7 more days, and then closing in 7 more days; your offer would have a 22 day appraisal contingency, 29 day financing contingency, and a 36 day closing date. Those dates may not be acceptable to a seller. But if you can get a seller to accept longer contract timelines, then you may be able to wait until after the inspection to order the appraisal.
Or do a pre-inspection, and inspect the home before your offer.
Either way you go, you have no recourse for the appraisal fee, you have to pay it.
I would love some guidance. We just went through the entire process of attempting to purchase a home via a USDA loan. We did all the appraisals, documentation, credit approvals, etc. Our mortgage broker knew from day one that we were reliant on the USDA program to make our purchase of this property. Two days before signing he notified us that he ‘messed up’ and that the property didn’t meet the age requirement to be approved for the USDA loan. He was provided with the age of the home on day one when we asked him to review and send over the pre-approval letter to our realtor. This error meant we were out of pocket for inspections, appraisals, and a few other certificates required by the USDA loan for a property we never should have made an offer on. We had been working with this broker for 6 months and had no reason to not trust his expertise and knowledge of the loans he was selling.
If the loan had fallen through because of some other issue with financing or an issue with the property, I would expect us to be out of that money…it’s part of the risk. However, this was a direct error on his part since we were 5 weeks into a loan that should have been flagged as not qualified on day one. So far he has informed us he can only refund the appraisal fee. Am I wrong in expecting we should be refunded for the certificates and inspections as well?
Hello Katt. This is probably more a matter of personal loan officer opinion. If it were me, I would refund all the fees, and be embarrassed that I made such a mistake, and apologize profusely. I think your expectations are not unrealistic. Contact the branch manager of the company that your loan officer works for and calmly explain the situation and tell them that you expect them to pay all fees and maybe the branch manager can do something extra. Good luck.
I worked with an Amerisave lender who ran numbers for me. Said I wasn’t approved for a conventional loan. Then I was approved for FHA with PMI fee. He was being pushy saying I should lock the rate because interest rates were going to go up. He told me the appraisal was $450. I paid the fee with credit card. The next day I decided I didn’t want to pay the PMI. I spoke to a different company and was approved for a conventional loan with no PMI. The next day I notified Amerisave and he told me the appraisal fee was not refundable. The appraisal was never scheduled or performed. When I checked my credit card statement, I was charged $545. Is that legal and what are my options.
Hello Paul. If the appraiser never went to the property, they should not be charging you the fee. There were no services performed. If the loan officer says the appraisal fee is not refundable, ask to speak to a branch manager. I can’t imagine there is any justification for them to keep your appraisal fee. Worst case, contact your credit card company and ask them to reverse the charge, and explain that no appraisal was ever done.
One week before closing on a townhouse, I got a call from my realtor that the property had a lien on it for $200,000. The LLC selling it to me bought it as a foreclosure due to HOA fees. Well, there was also a mortgage lien that was “unknown” on the property. The property then foreclosed again while I was under contract to buy it. I spent money on the appraisal, the inspection, and HOA fees. Is it possible to get those fees back from the seller? Or would I be able to put a lien on the property since it was not my fault that the seller didn’t have a clear title before putting it on the market?
Hello Michelle. You can contact a lawyer to see about the possiblity of getting the fees back from the seller, but the problem with that is the lawyer fees may be equal to or exceed the amount you’d get back. I’d approach the seller without a lawyer first and ask, as a point of professional ethics, reimbursing you for your fees. Good luck.
I switched lenders on 12/14/22, by texting Cardinal Financials owner (who had initiated my loan). Since he had ordered appraisal on 10/12/22, he’s stating that the invoice was billable at that time, although appraiser did not go to properly until 12/23/22, 9 days after I told him I was going with another lender. I received a call on 1/19/23 to collect payment on appraisal. If I cancelled before appraiser went out to property, who is responsible for payment?
I’m so sorry I missed this when you originally posted it. It went to our website’s spam folder. If you canceled nine days before the appraiser went to the property, they should not be able to bill you. If you can prove all this, and the dates, I would tell them you’re going to take them to small claims court. That does not sound correct they should’ve billed you. Having said that, any appraisal fees are just a pass-through fee from the lender to the appraiser. There will be not be any benefit to the lender to have billed you for this, so I’m not sure why they did it. Unless they forgot to cancel the appraisal order, then the appraiser went out there and did the appraisal, so they decided to bill you for it so that they didn’t have to pay it? I would confront them directly and ask them what’s going on, and mention small claims court, and see what they say.