According to the HUD Q & A's, a signature is not required nor can be added to the GFE. Do any of you use other methods to get the customer's signature or do you just show that procedures are in place to meet the guidelines and refrain from having signatures.

We use Laser Pro and you can produce a GFE Acknowledgement that simply says: "Applicant acknowledges receipt of the Good Fait Estimate from Loan Originator dated MM/DD/YY'

Do you use this on every loan? I have heard two camps
1. get the customer to sign that they have received this document

2. Don't require more than what the regs require as it opens the bank up to more liability - if you ask for a signature from this customer, you must not have given the GFE on the other customer because their is not signature.

any thoughts out there?

Yes. I'm a firm believer not to obtain signatures on disclosures where they are not required by regulation.

Our compliance philosophy....."if it ain't required, we ain't gonna do it." No sense in making procedures more complicated than they already are!

I don't believe it creating requirements where there are none. You will be held to your policy and cited for errors. Why ask for problems.

You have to obtain the customer's acknowledgement of their intent to proceed -- that's the most logical point in the process to obtain a signature if you're going to do it at all. Of course, intent to proceed can be verbal, so you'd still be setting yourself for the same type of failure that the rest have noted.

I'm definitely in the camp of not getting a signature. I recommend sending a cover letter with the GFE outlining what you need (verification, deposit) to proceed. Also ask the customer to contact the loan if they wish to proceed.

If they call/stop in, bring in verifications or a deposit, you have evidence of their intention to proceed.



I technically disagree. The borrower's don't have to sign anything. Your statement implies that they do. Here's the relevant FAQs on this topic:

After a loan applicant both receives a GFE and indicates an intention to proceed with the loan covered by the GFE, the loan originator may collect fees beyond the cost of a credit report for origination-related services. [RESPA FAQ – GFE General #10]

Acknowledgement of receipt of a GFE, by itself, does not constitute an expression of an intention to proceed with the loan covered by the GFE. [RESPA FAQ – GFE General #28]

Back to my post above.....

"Our compliance philosophy....."if it ain't required, we ain't gonna do it." No sense in making procedures more complicated than they already are!"

We also do not obtain a written acknowledgment of intent to proceed....'cause it ain't required.

I agree swiggles - no documentation required to be retained on Notice to Home Loan Applicants either. I have to explain this to a lot of field examiners who want to see the proof.

If Congress or the regulators wanted it that way, they would have required it. If it's a risk issue that I may have to prove in court (like RofR, Settlement Statement, Final TIL), I'm going to get it signed or have proof it was delivered, but the GFE is not in that camp.

Here's my #1 argument for this: "Do we keep every TISA, EFT, EFA & Privacy disclosure we provide to everyone? No. We show you our system."

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post! I've tried to convince our mortgage crew of this for a long time. I just recently came across a loan where the lender wouldn't proceed with the loan because the customer had not returned the signed documents.

However, in defense of those who require a signature, The mortgage lenders at our bank say that require signatures because they have been burned too many times in the past by customers who claim they never received documents. Having a signature definitely proves the docs were delivered!

How were they 'burned'?
We're talking about the GFE and ETIL here, right? I don't see what your LOs are claiming could go wrong.

Well....either your customers are lieing or your mail system is severely flawed or your lenders are exaggerating. I can see the possibility of disclosures not reaching a customer on occasion, (we consider that risk to be low) but for this to be a regular occurance indicates that something is wrong somewhere.