CLOSING ON A HOME

The most impor­tant doc­u­ments you will sign at clos­ing are the note and mort­gage, some­times called the deed of trust. Unless there are spe­cial cir­cum­stances, these doc­u­ments are usu­al­ly pre­pared one to two days before your clos­ing. Oth­er doc­u­ments are pre­pared by the clos­ing agent the day before or the day of your clos­ing. If you would like copies of the com­plet­ed doc­u­ments to be sent to you after they are pre­pared, please con­tact your Loan Officer.

Auto­mat­ed month­ly pay­ments are avail­able. At the loan clos­ing an auto­mat­ed pay­ment appli­ca­tion will be pro­vid­ed. Sim­ply return it at your ear­li­est con­ve­nience to enroll in the auto­mat­ed pay­ment program.

If you won’t be able to attend the loan clos­ing, con­tact your Loan Offi­cer to dis­cuss oth­er options. If some­one you trust is able to attend on your behalf, you can exe­cute a Pow­er of Attor­ney so that this per­son can sign doc­u­ments on your behalf. In oth­er cas­es, we’re able to mail you the doc­u­ments in advance so that you can sign them and for­ward them to the clos­ing agent. We’re sure to have a solu­tion that will work in your circumstances.

We use a nation­wide net­work of clos­ing agents and attor­neys to con­duct our loan clos­ings. We’ll sched­ule your clos­ing to take place in a loca­tion that is locat­ed near your home for your convenience. 

We’ll deliv­er our loan doc­u­ments and wire trans­fer your loan funds to the clos­ing agent or attor­ney pri­or to clos­ing so that they’ll have plen­ty of time to pre­pare for your closing.

The clos­ing will take place at the office of a title com­pa­ny or attor­ney in your area who will act as our agent. If you are pur­chas­ing a new home, the sell­er may also be at the clos­ing to trans­fer own­er­ship to you, but in some states, these two events actu­al­ly hap­pen separately.

Dur­ing the clos­ing you will be review­ing and sign­ing sev­er­al loan papers. The clos­ing agent or attor­ney con­duct­ing the clos­ing should be able to answer any ques­tions you have or you can feel free to con­tact your Loan Offi­cer if you prefer.

Just to make sure there are no sur­pris­es at clos­ing, your Loan Offi­cer will con­tact you a few days before clos­ing to review your final fees, loan amount, first pay­ment date, etc.

The most impor­tant doc­u­ments you will be sign­ing at the clos­ing include:

HUD‑1 Set­tle­ment Statement

This doc­u­ment pro­vides an item­ized list­ing of the final fees charged in con­nec­tion with your loan. If your loan is a pur­chase, the set­tle­ment state­ment will also include a list­ing of any fees relat­ed to the trans­ac­tion between you and the sell­er. If this loan will be a refi­nance, the set­tle­ment state­ment will show the pay off amounts of any mort­gages that will be paid in full with your new loan. Most items on the state­ment are num­bered accord­ing to a stan­dard­ized sys­tem used by all lenders. These num­bers will cor­re­spond to the num­bers list­ed on the Good Faith Esti­mate that will be pro­vid­ed in your appli­ca­tion pack­age. This doc­u­ment is also com­mon­ly known as the clos­ing state­ment and both the buy­er and sell­er must sign this document.

Truth-in-Lend­ing State­ment (TIL)

This doc­u­ment pro­vides full writ­ten dis­clo­sure of the terms and con­di­tions of a mort­gage, includ­ing the annu­al per­cent­age rate (APR) and oth­er fees. It is exact­ly the same as the TIL that you received imme­di­ate­ly after your ini­tial appli­ca­tion, except it has been updat­ed to reflect the final rate and fee infor­ma­tion. Fed­er­al law requires that all lenders pro­vide you with this doc­u­ment at closing.

Note

This is the doc­u­ment you sign to agree to repay your mort­gage. The note will pro­vide you with all of the details of your loan includ­ing the inter­est rate and length of time to repay the loan. It also explains the penal­ties that you may incur if you fall behind in mak­ing your payments.

Mort­gage / Deed of Trust

This doc­u­ment pledges a prop­er­ty to the lender as secu­ri­ty for repay­ment of a debt. Essen­tial­ly this means that you will give your prop­er­ty up to the lender in the event that you can­not make the mort­gage pay­ments. The Mort­gage restates the basic infor­ma­tion con­tained in the note, as well as details the respon­si­bil­i­ties of the bor­row­er. In some states, the doc­u­ment is called a Deed of Trust instead of a Mortgage.

If your loan is a refi­nance, Fed­er­al Law requires that you have three days to decide pos­i­tive­ly that you want a new mort­gage after you sign the doc­u­ments. This means that the loan funds won’t be dis­bursed until three busi­ness days have passed. The clos­ing agent will pro­vide more details at the closing.

The clos­ing agent acts as our agent and will rep­re­sent us at the clos­ing. How­ev­er, your per­son­al Loan Offi­cer will con­tact you pri­or to clos­ing to talk about your final doc­u­ments and to pro­vide a final break­down of your clos­ing fees. If you have any ques­tions that the clos­ing agent can’t answer dur­ing the clos­ing, ask them to con­tact your Loan Offi­cer by phone and we’ll get you the answers you need — before the clos­ing is over!

In some areas of the coun­try it is very cus­tom­ary, and some­times required by law, to have an attor­ney rep­re­sent you at the clos­ing. In oth­er areas, attor­neys are not as com­mon at a real estate clos­ing. Please con­tact the clos­ing agent if you have ques­tions about attor­ney rep­re­sen­ta­tion. By all means, we rec­om­mend that you have an attor­ney at the clos­ing if it would make you more com­fort­able. If your attor­ney has any ques­tions about your new mort­gage, please refer them to your Loan Offi­cer. We’d be hap­py to pro­vide any infor­ma­tion necessary.