Question:
“I just made an offer on a home. I’ve been qualified by a mortgage broker I know, but the seller wants me to qualify with a lender they know. Is this even legal? I’m a private person and don’t want to share my personal information.”
Answer:
Yes, it is legal. What may or may not be legal is actually requiring you to get your loan from their lender.
That being said, I completely understand how you feel. But please also see this from the seller’s perspective…
You’re asking the seller to take their home off the market based on your ability to get a loan. If your loan was denied, the seller would lose many weeks and have to start over. Depending on their situation, this could be a disaster.
Often people make offers on my clients’ homes and present us with qualification letters from lenders I’ve never heard of. I would be doing my client a disservice and putting them at unnecessary risk if I told them to accept at face value a letter from a random lender.
And I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had my lender “cross-qualify” the buyer (as it’s called), only to find out that random lender missed or even misled us and the buyer was unlikely to get financing.
So, again, I totally get how you feel. But either realize it’s a necessary bother or move on and hope to find another home where the seller’s agent isn’t really looking out for his/her client.
