I know the new regs prohibit collecting the appraisal fee prior to disclosure, but is there anything that prohibits the appraisal being ordered prior to disclosure? Then collecting the fee at closing?

"anything that prohibits": Nope.

But if an appraisal is ordered prior to providing ETIL, and the application is declined, you cannot require the applicant to pay for the appraisal......even after subsequently providing the ETIL....right?

Why not? The prohibition is against imposing the fee not ordering the service until disclosures are received. If the applicant wants to continue with the transaction, you could require them to pay the fees after receipt of the disclosures. If you have already denied the applicant, I'm not sure how you would collect - plus very few appraisals are done in three days. If you collect and immedaitely deny the loan for credit quality issues, I would think that UDAP might come into play.

Thanx....that makes sense.

If you charge the appraisal fee after the ETIL and the good faith has been given wouldn't you have a problem as the appraisal fee was then collected POC and not disclosed until closing. This is an area I have a discussion with our mtg people alot. Then if the loan does not close for credit reasons the funds are refunded provided the appraisal was not ordered. Let's also say that during the process one of the applicants loose their job so the loan can not be closed and the appraisal has been ordered we do not give them the money back or should we? Do you tell them when they say they want to continue the application process after the 3 days that the appraisal now needs to be paid for upfront - this is were I have a problem with proper disclosure cause what if the banks they compared did not have this requirement. Did we give them the full picture at application time. I of course could be reading way to much into it. Thanks for any help clarify this.