Who Wants What From TRID? The CFPB Comments Reveal Some Very Strange Bedfellows
Title, lenders, consumers, appraisers and tech companies agree TRID has problems. They absolutely do not agree on which ones.
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The weirdest thing in the TRID docket is not how much everyone disagrees.
It is who keeps agreeing with whom.
Title and consumer advocates both get nervous when lenders start talking about replacing bright-line rules with āmateriality.ā
Appraisers and title professionals are making eerily similar arguments that TRIDās clean-looking fee lines can actually hide the real economics of the transaction.
Equifax wandered into a mortgage-disclosure fight to ask whether the āCredit Report Feeā on the Closing Disclosure is even the cost of that borrowerās credit report.
Snapdocs took a question about electronic signatures and proposed something much bigger: when a transaction is eligible, perhaps lenders should actually have to offer a digital closing option.
PACE administrators showed up with leaking roofs and dead air conditioners to argue that the federal governmentās favorite example of an āemergencyā is absurdly narrow.
And the reverse-mortgage industry and consumer advocatesāwho do not spend a great deal of time holding handsāboth basically told CFPB:
Yes, please make a reverse-mortgage disclosure that explains a reverse mortgage.
That is what makes these comments worth reading as a group.
This is not one fight over whether TRID should be stricter or looser.
It is a pile of smaller fights over what the disclosure is supposed to accomplish, who absorbs the cost when it fails, and which part of the transaction CFPB has been looking at from the wrong end.
Once you sort the commenters by what they actually want, the coalitions get very strange very quickly.
And title is sitting in the middle of more of them than you might expect.
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The Big Mortgage Trades: Keep TRID, Loosen the Machinery
The broad mortgage coalition is considerably less revolutionary than some of the rhetoric surrounding TRID reform might suggest.
On August 7, the American Bankers Association, American Financial Services Association, Americaās Credit Unions, Consumer Bankers Association, Housing Policy Council, Manufactured Housing Institute and Mortgage Bankers Association submitted a joint letter built around just three consensus recommendations:
rework TRID tolerances;
change the six-item definition of an application so lenders can obtain additional information before the Loan Estimate clock starts; and
make the bona fide personal financial emergency waiver more usable.
That is worth noticing.
Their joint position was not:
Burn the Loan Estimate.
Kill the Closing Disclosure.
Consumers have had it too good for too long.
It was much closer to:
TRIDās compliance machinery has become excessively technical, and we want more room to operate around it.
The tolerance complaint is especially broad. The trades argue that the current structure punishes immaterial differences instead of asking whether the consumer actually received meaningful cost information.
Individual lender filings then push farther in different directionsāmateriality standards, fewer redisclosures, broader third-party tolerances, shorter waiting periods, rescission flexibility, digital modernization and special treatment for particular products.
So yes, the lender-side center of gravity is roughly:
Three days bad. Redisclosures bad. Fewer technical rules good. Please make mortgage go faster.
Rude?
A little.
Wrong?
Not particularly.
But it is still more accurate to say lenders largely want to keep the disclosure architecture and reduce the procedural consequences surrounding it than to say the mortgage industry wants TRID dismantled.
Title and Escrow: Please Make the Disclosure Match the Transaction
This is where the title comments become much more interesting than generic āTRID is burdensomeā coverage.
ALTAās first and explicitly most important recommendation is fixing the simultaneous-issue title premium formula.
Its complaint is beautifully simple:
TRID can require title insurance to be displayed in amounts that are not the actual policy-level premiums being charged under state-filed rates.
Florida demonstrates how absurd that can become: an actual $25 simultaneous-issue lender-policy premium can appear as $1,275 on the federal Closing Disclosure, while the ownerās premium moves in the opposite direction. The combined total remains correct, but the individual numbers no longer tell the consumer what each policy actually costs. Florida consequently requires another disclosure to explain the federal disclosure.
Title and escrow also want relief around recording fees, transfer taxes, notary charges and other costs controlled by governments or third parties rather than creditors.
But then their agenda begins separating from the lendersā.
Californiaās Escrow Institute says many last-minute revisions are caused not simply by TRID requirements but by late lender-settlement coordination. Its members report being asked for final figures within 24 to 48 hours of closing on escrows that have been open for weeks. It wants earlier standardized data exchange between creditor and settlement.
That is an entirely different diagnosis.
Lender:
Give me more flexibility when the number changes.
Settlement:
Could we perhaps stop waiting until Thursday to discover the number for Friday?
Both can be right.
But only one of those solutions changes the upstream workflow.
Title and escrow also want clearer changed-circumstance rules, elimination or replacement of the separate seller CD, more consistent electronic-delivery guidance and usable emergency-waiver rules.
And on materiality, settlement becomes surprisingly conservative. (Not politically conservative. Operationally conservative.)
An escrow company holding other peopleās money wants a rule that says:
You may disburse now.
It does not particularly want:
The lender reviewed the totality of the circumstances and considers the change immaterial. Good luck.
California Escrow Association warns that settlement may not even have the lenderās compliance information necessary to make that judgment independently.
So titleās position is not:
Less regulation.
It is closer to:
Give us accurate numbers, predictable rules and enough information to actually close the transaction.
That is a much stronger argument.
Consumer Advocates: The Annoying Friction Is Sometimes the Protection
The National Consumer Law Center coalition is the clearest counterweight to the deregulatory side of the docket. It strongly defends the existing pre-consummation review period and post-consummation rescission rights. It opposes making emergency waivers easier to normalize. And it is deeply skeptical of replacing bright-line requirements with a broad materiality standard.
Their basic argument is uncomfortable but important:
Some of the friction industry participants experience as delay is deliberately there to prevent consumers from being rushed.
A borrower who reaches the end of a stressful purchase transaction is highly motivated to sign whatever keeps the moving truck moving.
That is precisely when a mandatory period can have value.
The NCLC coalition therefore hears:
Let the consumer waive the waiting period.
and thinks:
Eventually somebody is going to put the waiver in DocuSign between the privacy notice and the flood form.
That is why it specifically objects to making preprinted/model emergency waivers routine.
Unsurprising was how often consumer advocates and settlement professionals land near one another. Not because they share the same philosophy. Consumer groups want bright lines because they protect borrowers. Escrow wants bright lines because somebody holding $487,000 in trust would really enjoy knowing whether the transaction can legally fund. Different roads. Same stop.
Then Approximately Every Appraiser in America Found the Comment Button
The appraisal contingent is one of the strangest and most organized subplots in this docket. Their campaign centers on the combined Appraisal Fee.
The Appraisal Regulation Compliance Council asks CFPB to require separate disclosure of:
Appraiser professional fee
and
Appraisal management company fee.
Its argument is that a consumer can see one appraisal charge without knowing how much was actually paid to the licensed appraiser and how much was retained for appraisal-management services.
That creates a fascinating parallel with title.
Title says:
The federal title lines do not show the actual policy-level economics.
Appraisers say:
The federal appraisal line does not show the actual service-level economics.
Both are challenging one of TRIDās foundational design instincts:
Fewer lines = simpler disclosure.
Sometimes fewer lines mean the consumer sees less.
ARCC goes much farther, alleging substantial AMC markups, workforce effects and anticompetitive practices, and it relies partly on its own collected exhibits and calculations. Several related lawsuits it cites remain allegations rather than adjudicated facts.
Those broader claims need to stay in the claimed/alleged bucket.
But the disclosure-design question stands on its own:
If the borrower pays for two distinct services, should the form show one price or two?
That is absolutely a TRID question.
Equifax Showed Up to Ask What a āCredit Report Feeā Actually Is
This one I did not have on my bingo card.
Equifax spends much of its filing defending the continued value of tri-merge credit reporting and discussing credit-data costs.
Commercial interest noted.
But then it gets to an unexpectedly good disclosure question.
Equifax says mortgage lenders can calculate credit-report charges using different methodologies, including:
the actual products used for that borrower;
an averaged methodology; or
a closed-loan/funded-loan methodology where the consumers who successfully close may absorb costs associated with applications that did not.
Equifax wants CFPB to require greater clarity about which methodology produced the charge.
And again we arrive at the same uncomfortable question:
If the Closing Disclosure says:
Credit Report Fee: $X
but $X is not necessarily the actual cost of that consumerās credit reportāwhat exactly is the line telling them?
TRID keeps running into this problem.
Title premium.
Appraisal fee.
Credit report fee.
The form presents a beautifully specific dollar amount. The economic meaning underneath it may be considerably less specific.
Snapdocs Did Not Come Merely to Request Better E-Sign Guidance
Tech vendors absolutely got involved.
And Snapdocs brought one of the most aggressive proposals in the docket.
CFPB asked whether it should provide additional guidance around electronic forms and signatures.
Snapdocs said yes.
Then essentially added:
Also, once a transaction is legally and operationally eligible, maybe lenders should have to offer a digital-closing option.
Not require consumers to use it.
Require covered lenders to make the option available when the documents and transaction qualify, while preserving paper and hybrid choice.
That is a major escalation from:
Please clarify electronic delivery.
It turns eClosing from something the law permits into something that could potentially become a consumer availability right.
And title would be standing directly in the implementation path.
Because digital eligibility can depend on:
state law;
notarization;
county recording;
investor requirements;
insurer and guarantor requirements;
warehouse and custodian requirements;
eNote eligibility;
and title requirements.
Snapdocs acknowledges all of that.
It also has an obvious commercial interest in more digital closings.
Both things can be true.
The proposal deserves attention precisely because it is not generic vendor marketing. It is a genuine regulatory ask that could change closing workflow.
PACE Brought the Best Argument for Why āConsumer Protectionā Can Become Consumer Friction
BRIDGE represents companies administering state-authorized PACE programs.
It also disagrees with CFPBās underlying treatment of residential PACE as consumer credit subject to TILA.
So again: perspective noted.
But BRIDGE provided perhaps the most intuitive argument in the docket for making emergency waivers more usable.
A homeowner needs a roof.
Or the air conditioner dies during a heat wave.
BRIDGE calculates that the overlapping timing requirements applicable to the transactions it describes can total at least 13 business days from application through funding. It argues that consumers needing urgent repairs may instead seek faster and potentially more expensive credit.
Then the consumer coalition points out the opposite risk:
Make waivers too easy, and the consumer-protection period becomes routine opt-out paperwork.
There is your policy problem in one sentence:
Sometimes delay protects the consumer. Sometimes delay prevents the consumer from solving the emergency.
Welcome to regulation. Sorry about the paperwork.
Reverse-Mortgage Commenters Mostly Agreed the Current Disclosure Is Bad
Reverse mortgages produce one of the least combative parts of the docket. The National Reverse Mortgage Lenders Association supports a tailored reverse-mortgage disclosure. Consumer advocates also support a carefully designed reverse-specific disclosure. The two groups differ in emphasis and desired safeguards, but the core diagnosis is remarkably similar:
Stop making consumers understand a reverse mortgage through disclosures built around a very different kind of loan.
NRMLA points to Federal Reserve testing showing some consumers misunderstood the TALC table so badly that declining percentages could be interpreted as a declining interest rate.
Its proposed alternative is much more visual and dollar-based: show the balance growing, the home value under assumptions and the equity relationship over time.
The consumer coalition also wants clearer loan-growth information, borrower-relevant scenarios, plain language, testing and counseling safeguards.
That is what healthy regulatory disagreement looks like.
Not:
Should this be understandable?
But:
What information actually produces understanding?
Manufactured Housing Came to Explain That āOne Property + One Sellerā Is Not Always a Thing
Manufactured housing also has an obvious institutional interest in specialized treatment. But its examples are extremely concrete.
A manufactured-home transaction can involve:
one seller for the home;
another for the land;
multiple deposits;
separate property components;
affixation or de-titling;
special recording charges;
and evolving construction or site-improvement costs.
The standard mortgage disclosure architecture is not terribly excited about any of this.
MHIās filing essentially asks CFPB to acknowledge that a housing product serving an affordability role may have a transaction structure that simply does not fit the conceptual mortgage around which TRID was designed.
Construction lending makes the same argument from another direction.
Reverse mortgages make it backwards.
PACE comes in sideways.
Eventually CFPB has to decide how many special regimes a supposedly integrated disclosure system can contain before āintegratedā becomes aspirational.
And the Small-Lender Fight Is Its Own Fight
Another fault line cuts across the main coalitions. Should smaller banks and credit unions have different TRID requirements?
Smaller depositories argue that fixed compliance costs hit them disproportionately because they cannot spread technology, legal, training and systems expenses across enormous loan volumes.
That is a real economic argument that falls apart when you take the next step. Because the next entity in line in the transaction is the title agency, and the title industry is disproportionately heavy on the side of small and micro businesses than giants. And a title company does not close only for one category of lender.
If CFPB creates:
Large Lender TRID
and
Small Bank TRID
and
Credit Union TRID
and perhaps different procedural options inside eachā
the lender may receive relief while the settlement company gains three workflows.
That is why ALTA expressly cautions CFPB against creating separate lender-category requirements unless the consumer benefit clearly exceeds the additional settlement complexity.
This is one of the central recurring themes in the title comments:
A cost does not disappear merely because you moved it to somebody else.
The Coalitions Are Not Where You Expect Them
Once you lay the comments next to each other, the actual map looks something like this.
On reducing unnecessary redisclosures: lenders, title and escrow are broadly aligned.
On third-party fee tolerances: again, substantial lender/title/escrow overlap.
On keeping the three-day initial review period: title and escrow are more protective of it than the broad deregulatory narrative suggests, while some lenders want more flexibility and consumer groups strongly defend it.
On materiality: many lenders like the concept; consumer advocates dislike it; escrow worries about inheriting the uncertainty.
On emergency waivers: lenders, title, escrow and PACE want clearer usable pathways; consumer advocates fear normalization.
On form redesign: title wants very targeted fixes; appraisers want unbundling; Equifax wants more explanation; specialty products want tailored forms; ALTA simultaneously warns everybody that form changes cost a fortune.
On digital closing: nearly everyone can support clarification. Snapdocs goes significantly farther by proposing required lender-level availability where eligible.
On whether TRID should explain actual economic reality: this is where the strangest coalition appears.
Title professionals.
Appraisers.
Credit-data companies.
Reverse-mortgage commenters.
Manufactured housing.
Different industries.
Different financial interests.
Same basic complaint:
The standardized disclosure sometimes simplifies the transaction until it stops accurately explaining the transaction.
That may be the most important theme in the entire docket.
After more than a decade, most of the serious commenters are not debating whether mortgage consumers should receive standardized information. They are arguing about what happens when the standardized framework meets a transaction that is messier than the framework expected. Lenders experience that as compliance cost. Consumers experience it as protection against surprise and pressure. Title experiences it as the gap between the federal document and the closing sitting on the desk. Escrow experiences it as the need to know exactly when money can move. Appraisers experience it as a fee line that hides the economics underneath it. Credit-data companies see another fee line that may mean several different things. Tech vendors see rules that permit digital closing without consistently producing digital availability. Specialty finance sees conventional mortgage rules wrapped around unconventional products.
Nobody is completely neutral here. The biggest insights come when you look for the places where people with completely different incentives keep pointing at the same broken part.
Those are the places CFPB should probably inspect first.
Stay Wicked,
Cheryl
Founder, Wicked Title Forum
From Chaos to Clarityāin Plain English
Contact Me (or hit reply)
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