Borrower consent form - unacceptable clause (Industry: insuring, mortgage, refinancing)

[roxito]

Towards the final stages of refinancing, I received a set of documents to eSign. One document was called "BORROWER CONSENT TO THE USE OF TAX RETURN INFORMATION". It states..

I understand, acknowledge, and agree that the Lender and Other Loan Participants can obtain, use and share tax return information for purposes of (i) providing an offer; (ii) originating, maintaining, managing, monitoring, servicing, selling, insuring, and securitizing a loan; (iii) marketing; or (iv) as otherwise permitted by applicable laws, including state and federal privacy and data security laws

Here the marketing clause is what I found objectionable. On doing some research I learnt the following:

- Last year 'Taxpayer First Act' was enacted recently (~Jun 2019) to protect borrowers by requiring lenders to disclose how they plan to use personal info and get explicit permission from borrower.

- IRS does not provide a standardized content for this form. So Mortgage Industry Standards Maintenance Organization (MISMO) drafted a free sample/template Form to facilitate this.

- MISMO website FAQ specifically says "lenders or other loan participants can change the model language".


I asked my loan agent to have that marketing clause removed and also shared my above findings. She was reluctant and stated "We do not sell your info or doing any other business with your tax return." We went back and forth on this a couple times. Now she says:

"I have confirmed with my broker. This is standard form required by all lenders. We have no right to remove it. What we can do is you can write a note that you don’t wanna lender to use your tax return. And give it to us. We can send it back to lender"

Any suggestions on how I may handle this ? Appreciate any inputs.

[gone down south]

You're kind of in a "take it or leave it" situation.... whoever your lender is, they're going to sell that mortgage almost immediately, and it'll get sold a dozen more times before you pay it off . The odds of every buyer in that chain taking your one special exemption into account is essentially Zero.

[roxito]

Does the "leave it" option imply that they will stick me with some "processing costs" ? The loan is a no-cost, no-points loan.

I was told "Appraisal fee is $450-$600 which will be refunded to you at closing. All other cost will be paid by us at closing directly. Disregard whatever cost or expenses we put on the forms, we cover everything"

No one has come here to inspect the property .. so property has not been appraised as of now.