We recently had a mortgage broker reach out to my financial institution. She asked how lenders viewed an increasing practice of sellers providing their buyer with gift cards to home improvement stores in lieu of physically performing repairs or for replacing appliances. She asked if we would consider this a type of mortgage fraud since this is not reflected on the closing statement.
We were completely unaware of this practice. It doesn't appear to be a RESPA issue since the exchange is not taking place with a settlement service provider. But should lenders account for this on the closing statement if we are made aware of this? If so, how would we do this?