Going back and forth amongst ourselves in our Compliance department on this issue so I wanted to see how others have viewed it the following question:

Can we collect for multiple credit reports that were ran prior to application?

ie: Borrower calls in January and credit is run. Borrower doesn't qualify and is counseled how to improve their score and calls back in June. Credit has expired so a new report is pulled and now the borrower is good to proceed with the loan. Application is finalized and completed. So, can we collect for both reports or only the most recent?

RESPA has always stated that the only thing we can collect for prior to disclosing ( and now with intent to proceed per TRID) is the "bona fide and reasaonable fee for a standard credit report." In this case it is bona fide and reasonable to collect for both, the letter of the law states 'a' credit report.

Interested to hear any differing viewpoints on this.

Thanks

"Borrower calls in January and credit is run. Borrower doesn't qualify and is counseled how to improve their score and calls back in June"

So, they applied for a loan and you ran credit and provided a AAN. If you wanted to collect for that credit report, you should have did that at that point.

Any other process is called prescreening applicants.

Yeah, some of our people are taking the more aggressive viewpoint that its all part of the same process. ECOA notice of action that the credit needs to be improved but there is no official application to deny/withdraw so they same file exists.