Garbage Fees

Unnecessary fees tacked onto mortgage closing costs by lenders to pad the lender's profit. Garbage fees may have names such as "administrative fee", "application fee", appraisal review fee", "courier fee", "document preparation fee", "document review fee","loan origination fee" and "settlement fee". These charges are usually either blatantly illegitimate or are typical costs of business but either way, they are dramatically exaggerated before being passed on to the customer.

Although some people see garbage fees as a necessary evil in the financing or refinancing of a home purchase, it is often possible for borrowers to get lenders to reduce or eliminate these bogus fees by speaking up and expressing an unwillingness to pay them. The best time to do this is before signing a good faith estimate.