Can your realtor talk directly to your bank?

lilgladiator · April 2012

Does anyone know if a real estate agent is allowed to contact the buyer's broker to see how the deal is moving along? Or is it only the buyer and the buyer's attorney? Note that the real estate agent is the buyer and seller's agent.

kaylie622 · April 2012

In our case, our REA was allowed to talk to our mortgage broker but I don't think the seller's agent would have been able to get any info. In a dual agency situation there are probably ethics rules on what they can communicate between parties.

brianabrad · April 2012

I'm not sure totally on what they can and can't ask but I know our lender asked who we were working with and asked whether or not we wanted him discussing our loan with our agent. We said sure because if something came up that we didn't understand, we wanted our agent to be able to call and confirm. I'm sure there is a level of privacy that your lender can tell them only certain things.

On that same hand, we made an offer on a house and the sellers agent called our lender to confirm the amount we were pre-qual for. Our lender called us after to let us know because he said he felt like the agent was "fishing" for information. Apparently, she was asking if we were approved for more than the letter said, etc. Our lender said by law all he could tell her was exactly what the letter said. Talk about slimy agents!

Juris11 · April 2012

Ours has. I think it there would be different rules for a dual agency situation though.

lurkergal1 · April 2012

My realtor referred me to the mortgage broker. They work together all the time and spoke a few times that I know of. My realtor even went and picked up the certified funds the morning of closing...but that's probably pretty unusual.

srs5624 · April 2012

The buyer's realtor can usually talk with the buyer's bank/credit union/broker unless the buyers have stated otherwise.

The seller's realtor cannot talk to the buyer's bank. The seller's realtor can ask the buyer's realtor for a status update (happens often when it's getting close to the financing deadline), but that's it.

Not sure how that'd work in a dual-agency. I guess they could, considering they're the buyer's agent as well. Ethically, I don't think they can share anything more than a generic update (it's in underwriting, waiting for the appraisal, etc) to the sellers. I could be wrong there... I cringe at dual-agency situations.

Aerowife2010 · April 2012

Yes, a buyer's agent can talk to the buyer's bank. When we first met with a REA, he told us that using him created a financial relationship (e.g., he could know the price range we were looking in, know how much we were pre-approved for, know our financial situation to make sure there would be no issues, could reach out to our bank to see how things were progressing, etc).

mikepugliese · April 2012

I sort of replied to this on your other post but here is a more specific answer from my experience.

It Depends.

I had a deal a few months ago where the lender really dropped the ball. Not like they have in your case however. When I tried calling to get involved (I was the agent for the buyer) they refused to deal with me. when I was helping them get paperwork signed or information they wanted they were more than happy to speak with me, but as soon as I triend to get them moving I got "Im sorry sir, we can only deal with the borrower in this situation". Luckily from my years in the business I had a contact at the lender in question so I called her. She was able to get involved a bit and try to help but even she was ultimately shut out of the process. Now this was just one particular bank so I cant speak to all of them.

In another case the FHA inspector never came to do his final inspection so I called the bank and they said oh he will be out today. I called again later in the afternoon and they said looks like everything went well there are no issues. I then left for California feeling like everything was set. I didnt want to go but I was selected to be on Wheel of Fortune so I couldnt pass that up. Once I was in LA I got a call from the buyers and they said that the inspector never came and that his broker was telling him we couldnt go to settlement which was in a few days.

I called the lender and was able to speak with a bunch of different people and get a handle on what happened. Apparently the person I spoke to initially didnt hear back from the inspector and assumed that no news was good news. Even in this case eventually I had to have the borrower call to sort it out, but it did get sorted out

Can your realtor talk directly to your bank?

Re: Can your realtor talk directly to your bank?

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