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How to avoid Fannie Mae Closing Delay Penalties?

Posted on: 12th Jul, 2009 11:24 am
My closing may be delayed because of a failure on my lender's part to order an appraisal on time. We have a "commitment letter" from the lender and have supplied all of our documents in a timely fashion, the only outstanding item is the appraisal. We may only need to delay the closing a week, but this is an REO property with a Fannie Mae sales contract and addendum stipulating a $100 per diem penalty for failing to close on time. I have asked if my lender if they can forward a closing package to Fannie Mae pending the appraisal to satisfy Fannie May's 72 hour required review period. Is there anything else we can ask our lender to do to avoid paying penalties if this doesn't close on time? Thanks!!!
Hi

There is not much you can do about it. If you have submitted all the required documents, there should not be any delay in closing. Did you contact your lender and asked them what is causing this delay in appraisal? After all, it's you who have to pay the penalties for the delay in closing due to no fault of your own. You must call your lender and demand an explanation as to why the appraisal is still pending.
Posted on: 12th Jul, 2009 11:27 pm
Thanks! I have called. They have put the appraisal on "super rush" but the closing is suppose to take place this Friday. The problem is that it needed to be expedited when I first contracted with them, but nobody was monitoring it. Will Fannie Mae take it into account that it wasn't our fault?
Posted on: 13th Jul, 2009 07:10 am
we can only hope so for your sake, elaine. i would make a whole lot of noise with that lender if i were you. since it's their delays that have caused this situation, it ought to be on their hands to see to it that fnma gets its $100 per day.

of course, you may want to point out to your realtor that you're not responsible for the delays - as i'm sure you already did. in that fashion, the word can be provided to fnma that to charge you for this delay would be unfair - there are, certainly, times when fnma does not actually institute the charge. the delay here may be minimal enough that they won't bother you with it.

i'm sure we would all love to hear the outcome - keep us posted, please.
Posted on: 13th Jul, 2009 07:34 am
Thanks for your response. Our lender is a BIG national lender and they have separate departments for everything--loan origination, processing, appraisal services, etc. The guy who we originally worked with was great and, while we certainly don't want to pay this penalty ourselves, I don't want it to come out of his loan origination fee.

He did assure me that they could make our closing date and I even discussed with him my concerns about getting the appraisal done on time (and I have REAMS of e-mails to prove it where I'm asking about the appraisal.) But he sent our file on to processing and that is where the delay occurred. My sense is that their loan processor is VERY overworked and the fault lies more with management loading people up with too much work to do their jobs effectively. Does anyone know if lenders ever step up and cover penalty fees if a delayed closing is not the fault of the borrower? If so, does it come out of the person who originally structured the loan's pocket?--Again, I do not think this was his fault at all-in fact he's been risking his neck to help us.
Posted on: 13th Jul, 2009 08:15 am
common story here, i think, though it ought not to have delayed the appraisal. we've found that loans originated this year are taking far more time to get to the closing table than previously. what's the culprit is not necessarily overworked processors, but substantially more verification than ever used to be.

we've gone from no-doc to every-doc and then some. i'd like to think that the bank on the other end (seller side) will be apprised of the situation, if necessary, and that they'll waive the $100 per diem. otherwise, it would simply be nice if your lender steps up on your behalf and on behalf of the loan officer.
Posted on: 13th Jul, 2009 08:22 am
Thanks-We're going to ask for an extension today and I'll post the result once we know the outcome.

We have been hyper vigilant about getting all our documents to the lender, my husband's credit rating is @ 760 and in our "commitment letter" only title and appraisal are listed as outstanding. If we are assessed penalties at $100 per day it could be over $1,000. I hope you're right about everybody understanding that loans take longer.

One lesson I have learned is that you have to monitor your file yourself--our margin of error was very small--the appraisal needed to be ordered the day that processing got our file in order for us to make closing and that wasn't done.

Are processors really overworked right now--ours seems to be. I thought maybe so many people have been laid off that skeleton crews are processing too many loans.
Posted on: 13th Jul, 2009 10:45 am
We have a signed off FNMA Sales Agreement, are approved for financing and have now been waiting 10 days for FNMA to return executed contracts...our closing is scheduled for Feb18th, and FNMA is sitting on their hands...what a joke...you are lucky you got to that point...
Posted on: 24th Jan, 2011 12:40 pm
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