A Newfound Empathy for Home Buyers and TRID

Elizabeth Weintraub lanai recouping at Hawaii house after completing TRID paperwork.

One thing this experience of buying a home in Hawaii has taught me is how difficult home buyers have it today because of TRID, the new lending guidelines that have so many lenders and title companies in turmoil. The paperwork itself is enormous. I received a welcome email that required 48 initials / signatures each from my husband and me. I know this because my middle initial was missing from my DocuSign email and I could not insert it because I already have an account without it.

The only way to do it would have been to delete all the tags and start over, which DocuSign disclosed I had 48 for me alone. I had to contact the lender to find out if it was necessary according to TRID to have my middle initial on those documents, and the loan officer is not really certain. Hawaii has its own particular weirdnesses. If TRID does, there is still time to get it on the hard copy documents, which was being mailed to our home in Sacramento.

Because I am a Sacramento Realtor, I know the questions to ask. A regular buyer, however, does not.

Oddly enough, the lender did not upload the welcome package to DocuSign for me. She emailed it and asked that both my husband and I print it out and scan it back. That’s a lot of work for a buyer when it could be DocuSigned. Lenders should do that for you, right?

Then I noticed my rate was not locked, even though I had asked for it to be locked. It was floating and said so in the welcome package, which I promptly rectified. I asked the loan processor yesterday if she was indeed mailing the package to my home or if she was sending it FedX. When she used the words “mail” she actually meant FedX. Well, can she send it without requiring a signature for delivery? No, she says, she cannot. What? Then send it UPS, for crying out loud.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg.

Most buyers don’t know enough to trouble-shoot their own loans because they are not in the real estate business and don’t know beans about TRID. This is how problems start and mushroom. I suspect buyer’s agents might need to work a bit more closely with buyers to try to anticipate difficulties and probably micro-manage potential difficulties.

Of course, it goes without saying, if a buyer is getting a loan through our preferred mortgage lender, there generally are no problems. These guys examine every document with a magnifying lens.