NORTHERN CALIFORNIA: How to avoid being RIPPED OFF in closing costs / at closing?

[Scallywag]

Hi,

My cousin was RIPPED off at closing in 2008 and ended up paying $4000 MORE than the good faith estimate. She also says that the notary was a bully, in a rush and wouldn't give her time to review the docs! She says NO ONE showed up at the closing aside from the a$$hole of the notary and was / is shocked to see a room full of people on some episodes of HGTV's House Hunter show closings! I am very nervous after all this esp the 4k difference in closing costs between GFE and actual.

I understand that we are in 2019 and that things may have changed but I have an anxiety disorder and I am already worried. So could you kind folks help me? How can I prevent a rip off in final closing costs and who should attend closing with me & my spouse? When should I get the LOAN documents and EVERY document I will be signing to review before signing? Will the docs be sent to me or will they be sent to the title company or my realtor or notary or whoever? If they recieve the docs how will I know and when should they give me the docs to review?

To be clear - and even if this sounds paranoid - I want the actual docs I have to sign to review before signing, not COPIES of said docs.

Thank you for any advice you have for me. Much appreciated.

[disneysteve]

I'm not sure what happened to your cousin. The whole point of the GFE is so that you know exactly how much money you need to bring to closing. She should have just said she didn't have another $4,000 and let them figure it out. If they screwed up the estimate, it all should have been clearly explained to her.

As for reviewing the documents, it's been a long time but I would think your realtor should be able to help with that. I don't remember exactly how that worked. I'm pretty sure our attorney reviewed everything for us so we must have had stuff in advance. He may have come to closing with us too.

I can't imagine anybody is going to give you the actual docs that you will sign. Too much risk of you altering something. But they can probably email them to you. Everything is electronic today.

[Jluke]

Closing costs can have a lot of line items.

to be off by 4K is pretty bad.

however, you do not indicate exactly what specifically drove that difference.

Given that it was 4K, maybe it was needed for an escrow account upfront to cover taxes and insurance.

does California have a transfer tax? In PA it is 2% where buyer and seller cover 1% each.

It could have also included interest on the mortgage prior to the first payment.

it’s best to fully understand each line in the good faith estimate and figure out if anything is missing or grossly wrong.

using a reputable lender also goes a long way to ensure no gotcha fees/expenses.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

did they close on time or did the date change? If you close end of month less interest. If it's late and you closed say 2nd of month big difference in GFE. That's the one that usually leads to differences