LO Toolkit - Fees

Part of the Blend LO Toolkit workflow includes a dedicated page for loan teams to manage and structure the fees that should be included as part of the estimated closing costs and total cash to close considered in the loan qualification process. As part of the fee management workflow, Blend supports integrating fees from a variety of sources (more details in the fee data sources section below), as well as configuring the fee management “Details of Transaction” page with the relevant fees and editing permissions desired for your loan teams.

Lenders also have the option to enable the details of fees managed in Blend to be included in the MISMO data export used to integrate loan application data into the downstream LOS.

Note: Full data integration support will vary by LOS provider.

• View Fees in the Details of Transaction Screen
• Fees in Borrower Application Experience
• Fee Data Sources
• Lender-specific Fees
• Third-Party Fees
• Prepaid/Escrow Fees
• Government Loan Program Fees

View Fees in the Details of Transaction Screen

1. Click Edit in the sidebar to get to the Details of the Transaction section. 

a. Borrower summary: This section has all details about borrower's cash to close. 

Note: All borrower-paid fees will be aggregated into a total cash-to-close calculation that will be used later in the LO Toolkit workflow when submitting the loan to AUS.

b. Loan Information: Information in this section is pulled from the application. 

c. Points: This represents a positive or negative amount. 

• Negative amount means the borrower is paying.
• Positive amount means the lender is paying.

d. Costs: These can be paid by borrower, seller or lender. Costs designated as paid by Seller costs are deducted from the total cash to close the borrower will owe.

e. Prepaid: This section represents any of the Monthly Housing Expenses that would be paid in advance/upfront. 

f. Initial escrow payment at closing: This functions as a prepaid and is populated from the prepaid section. 

g. Other fees: This is an open field that can be used for additional fees. 

h. Other details of transaction: This section includes liabilities marked paid at close as well as FHA/VA items (e.g. UFMIP & Funding fees). Edits should be made on the Liabilities screen, if needed.

From the Details of Transaction page, fees from any configured sources will populate the form.

2. Click ClosingCorp to pull fee quotes from services like ClosingCorp. 

Note: Other fee quoting providers such as Ernst and LodeStar are also available, see more details in the Fee data sources section.

3. Edit any fees you wish to change/add. 

Note: Fee items on the Details of Transactions page can be configured to be open and editable by loan team users, or configured to be read-only on a fee item by item basis, as well as an all or nothing setting. It is currently not possible to gate the ability to edit fees by user roles. 

4. Click Save. 

5. Click Send cost estimate to borrower, if desired. 

6. Click Send to borrower, this document will be shared with the borrower in their portal.

Note: Other fee quoting providers such as Ernst and LodeStar are also available, see more details in the Fee data sources section.

Fees in Borrower Application Experience

For lenders that would like to include fee estimates as part of the borrower application experience, the borrower product and pricing “Loan Options” workflow can be configured to include displaying any fees returned from a configured fee data source along with the loan product details.

1. Borrowers can click Select Loan to view the loan details. 

2. The Loan Details screen will display the Settlement & Closing Costs. 

Note: These estimated closing costs can also be configured to be used in the borrower pricing workflow, but not explicitly shown to the borrower as part of the product selection experience.

Fee Data Sources

The Blend fee management workflow defines the following fee categories, each of which support different data source options, detailed in the sections and tables below:

• Lender-specific fees
• Third-party fees
• Prepaid / escrow fees
• Government loan program fees

Lender-specific Fees

Blend supports the following data source options to integrate fee items set by the lender such as origination/application fees, processing and underwriting fees, credit report fee, etc.:

Notes:

• EPPS does not offer a fee template configuration today, however our team can configure a template for it within the Blend Platform.

• We can ONLY differentiate Fees data integration at the State or County level. Branch level configurations are currently not supported.

Third-Party Fees

Blend supports the following data source options to integrate fee items for third-party settlement services such as appraisal fees, title fees, and municipal transfer tax and recording fees.

Note: Third-party fee providers may charge for usage. Please contact your service representative to confirm costs.

Prepaid/Escrow Fees

Blend supports the following options for determining prepaid fee and escrow fee requirements:

Government Loan Program Fees

If a government loan program is selected (FHA, VA, USDA), capturing the following associated upfront fees is supported as part of the fee management workflow: 

• FHA UFMIP (upfront mortgage insurance premium) and monthly mortgage insurance factor
• VA Funding Fee
• USDA Guarantee Fee and monthly mortgage insurance factor

DISCLAIMER: The features on this page may not be applicable to your institution. Please reach out to Blend Support for more information on what features are enabled for your use.