Credit Report Re-Issue Fees

Additional Credit Report Fees to be Charged by
Credit Repositories

Led by Experian and Equifax, two of the three credit repositories (TransUnion is the third), there are now additional charges in connection with your credit report when shopping for a mortgage.

Called re-issue fees, they are now charging for the exact same credit report to every lender who will view the report.

Let me give you an example: When we receive a credit report on your behalf for the placement of your new home loan, there is a charge of approximately$18.00. We use that report in our analysis of the best places to submit your loan request based on programs and pricing. Up until now, we send that credit report to each lender that we are asking to consider your request and they have used that report for their purposes in deciding whether to grant the loan request, without an additional fee being imposed.

The repositories are now going to charge the full fee for each lender that the report goes to. If we submit to three lenders on your behalf, the credit bureau will charge an additional three fees.

They feel that they are deserving of this because they have a duty under the Fair Credit Reporting Act to track each exposure of a consumer’s credit data. Ironically, the ability of the credit file to be shared electronically from mortgage originator to lender increases the exposure of the consumer’s credit report and gives the credit bureau the ability to track how many different lenders have seen it so they can charge the additional fees.

And, as it happens too often, the very people that the rules are supposed to help are the most negatively impacted by the changes.

Borrowers that have the toughest credit histories, that require the most effort to find a match for their qualifications and to find the right program will end up paying the most under the new fee structure. It may take 3 to 10 lenders to look over a loan request from a borrower with marginal qualifications. This may increase the costs to that borrower up to an additional $200 in credit report re-issue fees. And unfortunately, there is no definitive way to get an answer from a lender until they have an opportunity to look over the financial qualifications of the borrower, including the credit report.

Be aware that these costs are being imposed by the credit repositories and will be passed on to the consumer in due course. They are not lender fees, but it will be the lender that informs you of what those fees total.

Because there is no real competition among the credit repositories they can and will collect these fees without fear that anyone will “take their business elsewhere”. There is no “elsewhere”.

You can be sure that I will always take the most efficient path to placing your loan that I can. I will not shop your request among many lenders without justification and, as a result create additional costs for you that are not necessary.