The Fees That Grew Between Loan Estimate and Closing

Tolerance categories turn on who receives the fee and whether the consumer could shop.

0% tolerance (cannot increase at all):

• Origination charges of $1,450 - the lender's own fee.
• The first appraisal of $650 - lender-required and the consumer cannot shop, so it is treated like a lender fee.
• The second appraisal of $450 - same reasoning; it is lender-required and non-shoppable.
• Transfer taxes - a 0% category, but the amount is $0, so nothing to test here.

10% cumulative tolerance:

• Recording fees of $95 - expressly placed in the 10% bucket.
• Title insurance of $1,200 - shoppable, but Priya selected a provider from the lender's written list, which keeps the fee in the 10% bucket. Had she chosen an unaffiliated provider outside the list, that fee would have been in the no-tolerance category.

No tolerance (can change freely, subject to disclosure):

• Prepaid interest, property insurance premiums, escrow deposits, and services the consumer shopped for outside the list. None are present here.

The $75 courier fee is not a tolerance question yet. It is a new charge that was never disclosed, so the threshold issue is whether the lender may impose it at all.

10% cumulative bucket. Baseline = $95 recording + $1,200 title = $1,295. Ten percent of $1,295 = $129.50 allowed increase. Actual = $185 + $1,410 = $1,595, an increase of $300. Excess = $300 − $129.50 = $170.50 cure.

0% bucket. Baseline appraisal = $650; the second appraisal adds $450, bringing the total to $1,100. Without a valid reset, the increase is a $450 cure. Origination was unchanged.

Total cure: $620.50, refunded to Priya and reflected as a cure on the Closing Disclosure, generally within 60 days of consummation.

Effect of the missing revised Loan Estimate. The lender received the information about the non-permitted addition on March 23. A revised Loan Estimate based on that changed circumstance had to be delivered or placed in the mail within three business days - by March 26. Because no revised Loan Estimate was issued, the second appraisal fee cannot reset the baseline. The same principle defeats any argument that increased recording or title charges could be excluded. With a timely revised Loan Estimate, the new appraisal amount would have become the new 0% baseline and the fee increase would have been permissible; without it, the lender absorbs the difference.

Also note that generally a revised Loan Estimate may not be delivered on or after the fourth business day before consummation. Given the April 15 delivery and April 17 closing, no reset was possible at that point anyway.

Closing Disclosure timing. For the three-business-day waiting period, a business day is any day the lender's offices are open for substantially all business functions. The lender is closed Saturday and Sunday. Delivery on Wednesday, April 15 leaves only Thursday, April 16 and Friday, April 17 - two business days. Consummation on Friday, April 17 is premature. The consumer must receive the Closing Disclosure no later than three business days before consummation, so with Wednesday delivery the earliest permissible closing is Monday, April 20. If the Closing Disclosure is re-issued, the three-day clock restarts.

The $75 courier fee. A document preparation courier charge is either a lender fee (0% tolerance) or a third-party charge for a service the lender required. Either way, it was added after the Loan Estimate with no revised disclosure. A lender may not add a new fee at closing absent a valid changed circumstance and a timely revised Loan Estimate. The practical outcomes are: absorb the $75, or delay and re-disclose properly - but a late Closing Disclosure cannot retroactively authorize a fee that should have been disclosed earlier. Since the closing must move to April 20 anyway, the lender has room to issue a corrected Closing Disclosure, but the fee still needs a legal basis to be charged to Priya.

Document the cure calculation and the reason the closing date moved.