It’s important in life and in mortgage lending that you be yourself. Accordingly, when your loan officer is presenting you and your loan application to an underwriter, you do everything you can to be as accurate and honest as possible. You take a detailed loan application and cough up unending amounts of documentation so, . . you’re good right? Actually, there’s a 25% chance that’s not quite right.
One in four consumers found an error in a credit report issued by a major agency, according to a study by the Federal Trade Commission. Five percent found errors that could lead to them paying more for mortgages. I can tell you from personal experience that even if these errors don’t lead to paying mortgage for a mortgage, they can lead to hang ups and delays in loan processing and underwriting. Any of these things are not things you want to learn about in the middle of your loan process.
So what to do?
- You should begin by downloading your credit report, from Annual Credit Report, which pulls from all three nationwide credit reporting companies: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.
- Look for any content that may be erroneous and prepare any supporting documentation that may be helpful in disputing the incorrect content.
- Initiate a dispute with the three major credit repositories:
- If this doesn’t remove or update the item in 30 and in some cases 45 days, file a complaint with the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau. I’ve seen this in action and the CFPB is actually quite responsive to these complaints if someone has already tried the previous 3 steps without success.
There’s no reason to be nice or passive aggressive about getting this done so don’t feel badly about pursuing this aggressively. Accuracy in your credit report has far reaching consequences that go well beyond the costs of and difficulty in obtaining financial services. You deserve to be you; you’ve earned it!
Charles Dailey – Branch Manager, Loan Officer, Certified Military Housing Specialist – CA DOC, MN DOC & WI DFI
The Home Buyers Scouting Report® is provided directly to the buyer by HBM II, a licensed national real estate brokerage service company, not to or through a lender. The FREE home finding service is provided directly to prospective homebuyers by HBM II and its real estate brokers, as part of their ordinary real estate brokerage services. HBM II, Inc. works cooperatively with other real estate agents across the United States in attempting to find ready, willing and able buyers for homes listed for sale. The role of the Preferred Loan Officer is to assist in determining a comfortable home price range for Home Buyers Marketing II, Inc. (HBM II) to use when it is searching for property listings within the buyer’s search criteria.
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