Question:

Are costs on the mortgage good faith estimate the final closing costs for a mortgage loan?

Answer:

Usually they are not.

Mortgage good faith estimate costs are what they say they are - a good faith estimate. Although they may not vary significantly from the final HUD-1 statement, sometimes the final costs may exceed with several thousands what was stated on the mortgage good faith estimate.

The difference usually comes from either junk fees, or fees out of the lender's control. In any case, any obvious discrepancy should require that you go over the HUD-1 and the good faith estimate to examine which items possibly inflated the final costs as much.

Although it may be unpleasant, it would be better to go to another lender if you have suspicions for unfair practices. The mortgage good faith estimate is not a binding agreement, but you cannot easily break out of a signed HUD-1 form.

If you are called in the morning on your closing date to bring in several thousand over what you agreed to on the GFE, call your realtor or the closing attorney for an explanation. No GFE can be off in the thousands. A couple of hundreds will be ok. Even if the escrow items have been underestimated, the mortgage good faith estimate can't be thousands below the final costs.

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Common misspellings: mortage and morgage