CHLA protests employment verification costs

The Community Home Lenders of America sent a letter to housing officials challenging verification of employment report charges by Equifax, raising questions about whether they are excessive fees in the mortgage process. 

The CHLA represented the current cost of each verification done through Equifax's The Work Number product as ranging from $55 to $70, in line with a starting price of $66.45 listed on the company's website. Since it is required during the underwriting process as well as just prior to closing, the cost for a mortgage with two applicants as borrowers can reach $280. Those expenses are passed along to the consumer, the letter sent to Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Sandra Thompson and Federal Housing Commissioner Julia Gordon said.

Furthermore, The Work Number has what the CHLA estimates is a 60% mortgage market share for VOEs, "and is used in the overwhelming majority of loans in which income verification is done electronically through a third party service provider," according to the  letter.

Finally, the letter alleged the cost meets many of the characteristics that a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau blog posting on excessive fees expounded on. In an interview discussing that posting, Scott Olson, the CHLA's executive director, saluted the blog's sentiment, declaring the group was "thrilled" that the bureau was taking the topic head on.

Alternatives to The Work Number exist in the marketplace, including Truv, which just received conditional approval by Fannie Mae for its Day 1 Certainty representations and warranty program. It previously was approved by Freddie Mac's asset and income modeler offering in Loan Product Advisor.

Also Fannie recently joined Freddie in approving the use of consumer-authorized digital banking validations as a means of verifying employment and other borrower data in circumstances where it provides sufficient proof. Fannie approval is conditional, and it will make this available for opt-in use starting on March 29.

In an interview, Truv co-founder and CEO Kirill Klokov praised The Work Number, which was created by Talx and acquired by Equifax, for taking on this burden from employers.

"If you talk to any Work Number customers, they say, 'they solve a real problem, but the prices are very high,'" Klokov said. And those end up getting passed on to consumers, especially because mortgage lender margins remain very thin.

Truv uses an open finance platform to obtain the information using borrower permissions to share the data, Klokov explained.

"It cuts costs because we don't have the middle man in between us, the borrower and their data," he said.

Truv's costs are 60% to 80% lower than The Work Number, Klokov said, and it allows for multiple pulls within 90 days for a single fee.

Competition is the answer to the fee issue, he said.

"If you want to solve the problem today, then there are alternatives that are as good or better than The Work Number," Klokov said. "You just need to try it and give it a shot."

Truv uses a different process than The Work Number, he continued, but "consumers should be in control of their data. They should make a decision who to share the data with."

In a statement from Equifax, the company said The Work Number competes with a number of businesses, including Silicon Valley startups through large multinational corporations, that also sell VOEs as well as verifications of income.

"Since The Work Number was founded nearly 30 years ago, we continue to compete against an option that is completely free and widely available: the paystub," the statement said.

"The Equifax Work Number follows the consumer reporting agency model guided by the Fair Credit Reporting Act, and provides instant digital verifications that can save time and reduce the administrative burden on borrowers and lenders alike."

It costs mortgage lenders about $12,000 to produce a loan, at an average net loss of $2,109, according to the latest data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

"The cost of a verification of income from The Work Number – eliminating the burden of hard copy pay stubs and phone calls or emails to verify information — is less than 1% of the total cost to produce the loan," Equifax said.