This week marked the deadline for comments on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed fixes for the ‘Know Before You Owe Rule,’ and National Association of Realtors® President Tom Salomone weighed in to highlight Realtors®’ concerns.
In a letter to CFPB Director Richard Cordray, Salomone said that Realtors® are focused on third-party access to the closing disclosure,, ensuring lenders can make certain “changes in circumstances” to a closing disclosure without delaying the closing, and the salability of loans in the secondary mortgage market.
Salomone honed in on agents’ access to the closing disclosure, which Realtors® have reported as a significant challenge despite CFPB’s consistent guidance that it is “usual, accepted and appropriate for creditors and settlement agents to provide a closing disclosure to consumers, sellers and their real estate brokers or other agents.”
“As stressed by many other real estate professionals’ in their comments, the CFPB should maintain the language in the proposed rule acknowledging that sharing the CD with third parties is permitted as a record of the transaction to provide lenders and title agents with certainty of protection,” Salomone said in his letter, “and further emphasize that sharing the disclosures is required to increase consumer comprehension and avoid unnecessary and costly slowdowns for real estate closings.”
The full text of Salomone’s letter is available here.
According to recent data, 45.6 percent of respondents had problems getting closing documents. NAR’s survey also found that transaction delays continue to occur more frequently in those transactions where the REALTOR® reported trouble accessing the closing disclosure.
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