Explore Properties at Southern California: New Rules to Help Mortgage Shoppers Get a Fair Deal

New Rules are now in place to help you get a fair deal on a home mortgage, which were adopted by the Federal Reserve Board (the Fed) for mortgages made on or after October 1, 2009:

For home mortgage loans (not including home equity lines of credit), the new rules will prohibit mortgage lenders and brokers from coercing or encouraging a real estate appraiser to misrepresent the value of a home.
Mortgage loan servicers (companies that collect mortgage payments and perform other duties for lenders) are prohibited from engaging in a variety of unfair actions. One is the failure to credit a consumer's loan payment on the date it is received.
Such servicers are prohibited from deducting a late-payment fee from a loan payment without informing the borrower and thereby creating a shortage that triggers additional fees for the borrower, month after month, even when the next loan payments arrive on time.
In general, the rules — some from the Fed and others from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — ensure that consumers receive "good faith estimates" of the costs of a mortgage earlier in the application process and that the disclosures better explain the costs and terms of a loan.
Required disclosures cover areas such as the potential for mortgage payments to go up, any penalty for paying off the loan early, and any fees paid by the lender to a mortgage broker for bringing in someone's business.

Please be careful and always consult with your local and experienced, licensed, mortgage or home loan broker, and with your CPA or financial consultant prior to signing mortgage loan docs.

See FDIC article - Mortgages: Attention, Shoppers! New Rules Will Help You Get a Fair Deal - click here.

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Harrison K. Long, Realtor & broker, Explore Group, Coldwell Banker Previews, Irvine, CA. CA DRE #01410855. ExploreProperties@gmail.com. Lawyer member of the California State Bar Association - State Bar number 69137. National Association of Realtors, California Association of Realtors, and Orange County Association of Realtors. Now serving as Chairperson of Local Government Relations south committee at OCAR.