u/Colossus252

Tell me if I'm crazy, but from where I'm sitting, it really feels like my bank should be on the hook here to repay me my appraisal fee:

Long story as short as possible, my girlfriend and I went through ~18 months worth of work with my bank to get our credit scores as high and beautiful as possible to get ourselves a nice home loan with good terms. At the beginning of this process, we informed the banker we worked with that my girlfriend has school loans that had recently been put in forbearance by the DoE due to issues they were having that eventually led to the recent end of the SAVE plan. Our banker informed us that, with the terms sitting how they were (loans were *not* accruing interest in whatever terns they had given her), our best bet was to leave them be, then once we get to the point that we get through with the home buy, we can plan to remove them from forbearance to get everything set. We questioned this specific recommendation a few more times, making sure it wasn't going to affect us in the process of our pre-approval or loan application. We were assured it was not.

Fast forward to the time everything's finally ready to go, according to our banker. We apply, and we get our pre-approval. Success! We begin our hunt for a home and continue our conversation with the bank's loan officer. We gave her all of our financials to get everything in ready, she looks it all over and verifies we're all good! 2-3 weeks go by and our house we currently own and live in goes into contract for sale. A week later, we get into contract to purchase the house we are planning to move into. Everything is good, we inform the lender, and she again verifies everything is good to go. We get our appraisal and inspection paid for, everything is being submitted to the underwriter, and... "Oh hey, our records show your student loan payment is too high... is this accurate?". We remind her that they are currently in forbearance and are planning to put them on a payment plan again as soon as we move into our new house under the IDR plan that they're moving people to from their old SAVE plans, as we had discussed several times. There is no monthly payment. This is where it all breaks apart. We're informed that now suddenly, we are no longer going to be able to be approved for the loan amount because their estimate is ten times what the actual estimated monthly payments are supposed to be (their system is estimating the monthly payment to be $3000 a month, while her actual estimated payment is just under $300...). We begin a bit of panicking here, as we're under contract to sell our house now, we can't just suddenly get dropped from the purchasing loan. So we show them the actual payment estimates, which is insufficient for the bank's underwriter. We are 18 days from our closing date on both houses.

So we scramble. We express frustration with our banker and loan officer in that they waited until the whole process is almost over after 18 months to realize that we should have had these payments set, but we submit the application to get out of forbearance. We're given an estimate of at least 14 days to get the approval. That's four days before our closing date and it's an estimate. Our loan officer gives apologies, but offers no solutions. We're told that if it takes longer than the closing date's arrival, maybe we can move in with family until they approve it. The purchasers of our house offered us an extra $5,000 to move out in 30 days under our initial contract rather than the 45 we requested, so we weren't really in a place to push back the closing either. The purchaser would accept a push back, but would rescind the extra $5k. So we work with our realtor who quickly and helpfully connects us with a local lender he's familiar with. We're 10 days from close, but she handles it quick and efficient. Luckily with her help (and accurate estimations on the student loan payments!), we manage to secure everything in time for the proper closing date at a lower interest rate than the bank offered.

However... we are forced to pay a new appraisal because the bank has a rule that they don't give the rights to an appraisal done under their process to be given away. So, given that we only paid that appraisal fee due to their negligence in leading us down a path for failure that we specifically asked them about multiple times, I requested that they consider refunding my appraisal fee. In my eyes, we only got to the point that we paid that fee because we relied on their guidance to get to the point of success within their own system. That they failed to consider the school loans prior to the point that they did was a failure on their own part, especially since they verified specifically that it would be no problem.

And we were denied. They say they're non-refundable. Okay, I understand. That makes sense in most contexts. It's paid to an outside company and I'm sure there are not very many actual valid times that someone wants the money back for their appraisal that is actually valid reasoning. I push back respectfully, telling them the story above. I get escalated to a regional manager. He expresses a bit of shock and surprise at everything and agrees that it's an abnormal scenario. He escalates our request through corporate, who, after a week, tells us we're denied again. So... I push back again and am informed that they "include that it's non-refundable in the disclosures. It's very firm and we abide by it because if we are not consistent in our delivery, it opens us up for fair lending/disparate treatment concerns with our regulators." However, she informs me that once again, she will push for an escalation of the request and put it back into consideration with more notes.

So, am I crazy and seeing this wrong? What do you guys think? Am I fucked here on that $600? It's not a ton of money, but I don't feel it's right that they're responsible for my loss on it and just get to run away from responsibility on it.

TL;DR: Bank told us not to worry about school loans currently being in forbearance, best idea is to start paying once the home loan is completed. Reassures us this is correct after we ask "Are you sure?" multiple times. After entering contract on buying/selling, they wait until barely 2.5 weeks remain to close to tell us "whoops, actually you do need to be paying on the loans or you won't get approved for the loan". We had to change lenders to one who could properly complete our paperwork, and now the bank denies responsibility for money lost in appraisal fee due to their misguidance.