Marital Information on Application

How do other banks handle or "correct" when the applicant marks a marital information box for a single applicant, unsecured loan when its not supposed to be collected?

document the file and move on. You didn't actively collect it. The applicant provided information you don't need.

Section 1002.12(a)(2) contains the "pardon" that obviates the need to "sanitize" unsolicited information from applicants.

The key, as both Truffle and Richard both pointed out, is that the provided information should be unsolicited. Most application forms have a disclosure that the marital status is FOR SECURED CREDIT ONLY or something like that, meaning that you are not requesting it for unsecured loans. If that disclosure isn't there - or if it is obvious that your lender completed the application (such as by phone) - then you would have a problem because you would be requesting it. Otherwise, the best practice (as mentioned) is to document the file in some way to explain that the information was unsolicited and provided by the applicant.

We ended up removing the marital status question on our consumer loan applications to prevent this.