From the RESPA Roundup:

“If the consumer did not purchase a service that was listed on the GFE (usually owner’s title) there should be nothing entered in that line on Page 2 of the HUD-1 and the estimate of the charge should not appear on the comparison chart on Page 3 of the HUD-1.”

They do mean that the fee for the unpurchased service should not appear on the HUD column of the comparison chart, right? Because our understanding was that all of the fees disclosed on the GFE should appear in the GFE column of the comparison chart. That is how our system is mapped. It simply appears as an overdisclosure of a fee. Now are they saying we have to remove it?

Yup...that's what they're saying. If you don't use the fee it shouldn't appear on the HUD in either the GFE or the HUD column. It should just POOF! disappear.

Yup...total contradiction and idiodic, etc, etc, etc.

Yup...my system won't do it either without going back and removing the fee from the original GFE. A lot of work and time wasted.

I contacted my software provider the day after RESPA Round-up came out. They don't believe the Round-up is correct. They wrote HUD, didn't like the answer and now have a conference call scheduled with them for tomorrow. I'll let you know if I hear back from them.

Can I tell you how much fun it is to argue pro on an answer from HUD when you agree with the con (software provider) that this is s-t-upid?

Or, you can do like Dan has said. Choose to stick to the wording in Appdx A..after all..that's the regulation...not simply an opinion!

Personally, I have a bit of a hard time making myself take that large of a stance against the opinion. It trully shouldn't affect very much, other than OTI. I think what happened is HUD realized, "Oh NO! We've created a way for the banks to pad because NONE OF THEM require OTI, but we require it to be disclosed"...they want money paid to the borrower that they don't deserve receiving...it's NUTS! But it's everywhere you look, from lender credit overestimations on no cost/low cost loans and now they are doing the same in the 10% category.

It will drive someone to drink...or drink more!

Our software also requires that processors go back and remove the fee from the GFE in order to not include it on the HUD....i.e. lots of work/time wasted as Truffle pointed out. We're not going to do it at this point...will wait for further clarification.

Has there been any additional clarification on this issue? What a mess...

Hello! Just got this from my software provider today.... In keeping with the notion that forwarned is fore-armed, note the item in red below.

Quote: I have spoken with Andrew Fey at HUD and another lady by the name of Cheryl (didn't catch her last name) regarding the Page 3 of the HUD-1 issue "clarified" on the Roundup for July. I also attended a RESPA webinar from MBA & HUD last week in which I also asked for a clarification regarding this issue and how it seems to contradict the verbiage in the regs. The response to last week's webinar written request, of course, hasn't been received yet.

However, in my conversations with people at HUD, it has become clear that they are not budging on this "clarification". Therefore we are preparing changes to the LP programming of the HUD-1 document on both page 2 and page 3 (and their respective Addendum forms) to remove any reference to fees (both amounts and descriptions) if the fee at the time of the printing of the HUD is zero. This is a fairly major undertaking for the intricate programming of the HUD-1 form, and will be included in the November release of LP, version 5.20.

I also found out that HUD is planning to release another version of their Roundup for further "clarifications" in the next week or two. I did receive "verbal" communication from HUD that implementing changes to systems due to HUD's "clarifications" is understood to take time, and they are aware that those changes will be implemented in systems as soon a possible and certainly not the next day. I actually got them to state that showing zeros isn't a violation, but just not as "clean" as they intended the HUD-1 to be.

Does anyone have anything new on this - i.e. have you sought guidance from your examiners? I have instructed staff to follow Appendix A and not this roundup guidance, but wanted to see what others are doing as this issue has come up again today.