Applicant dies - how to report

We received an application and 5 days after that, our customer passed away. We had pulled credit and sent out the loan estimate and other disclosures. Can this be reported as withdrawn even though it obviously was not expressly withdrawn by applicant. We would document this via a memo stating that we are considering it withdrawn due to the death of the applicant. The other option I was considering is reporting it as "file closed for incompleteness". Any suggestions?

I don't know of any explicit guidance, but i think closed for incompleteness actually is most easily defended.....if you had sent the notice of incompleteness that is.

We did not send a formal notice of incompleteness because it didn't seem appropriate since we knew she was deceased. Our letter that goes out with the loan estimate states that we need intent to proceed and also the verification items we need and says that if we do not receive the requested information within ten days, no further consideration will be given t the application. Would that be enough to defend reporting it as "file closed for incomplete"

That IS a notice of incompleteness, laf0915. It has all the information you need to mark this 'incomplete' for HMDA.

We had a similar situation a few years back and I believe we reported it as withdrawn since there wasn't any better option. In your case, I would do incomplete based on your cover letter.

I'd like to re-open this topic. How would you report this loan if the borrower dies and we issued a conditional approval?

You can't call it withdrawn because the applicant can't withdrawn the application now.
You could send a denial, but that seems harsh.
You could send a NOI, but that seems ridiculous as they can't respond.

I would probably document the applicant died and call it withdrawn.

David, could it be an approved but not accepted?

I don't see why not, assuming the application meets the criteria for approved but not accepted.

I've had this happen and we had, for all intents and purposes, approved the loan. It was reported ANA.

It could be ANA, IF the applicant was fully approved. The OP said they pulled credit and sent early disclosures. I doubt full approval had been achieved at this point. Did you have an appraisal already? If not, you can't verify the loan to value. Therefore, it couldn't be ANA.

We just had this happen here. Applicant applied for a purchase loan on 8/14 and passed away that evening. We found out about it on 8/17 so we obviously didn't send earlies. For HMDA is Withdrawn still the best action taken to report? By default it seems to be the only one (other than maybe denial) that remotely makes sense.

I see no option that makes any sense except withdrawn, since i don't think anyone with a heart is going to send out an AAN in such a scenario.

That was my thinking. Thanks