DocMagic, Inc.'s Compliance Department recently updated the "assumption fee" provision in the Fannie Mae first-lien, conventional second-lien, Veterans Administration ("VA") and FHA Nevada and Oklahoma security instruments to track the maximum assumption fee that a lender is permitted to charge under Fannie Mae, VA and FHA guidelines.

In March 2008, we wrote an article here about the impact of mortgage insurance premiums on some state high cost loan tests.  In this article, we explore how discount points are treated under the various state high cost tests. 

For the past several months, the DocMagic Compliance Department has begun posting more and more information to the DocMagic Compliance Website between Compliance Wizard publication dates.  To ensure that you receive newly-posted information as soon as it is available, the DocMagic Compliance Department is pleased to announce the addition of an RSS feed to the DocMagic Compliance Website.  To subscribe to the DocMagic Compliance Website RSS fee, copy the following link into your favorite RSS reader: http://www.docmagic.com/compliance/feed.  Your RSS reader will check the feed regularly for new content and will download any updates that it finds automatically.

If you originate loans in Maryland, you may have noticed that we have modified our Maryland security instruments to indicate, when applicable, that the property securing repayment of the promissory note is the borrower's principal dwelling.  By way of background, recording fees in the applicable Circuit Courts in Maryland are based in part on number of pages.  Generally speaking, for documents of nine (9) pages or less, the recording fee is $20; for documents of 10 pages or more, the recording fee is $75.  There is an additional $20 surcharge for most instruments recorded in the land records, such as security instruments.  Thus, the aggregate recording fee is $40 for a security instrument of nine (9) pages or less, and $95 for a security instrument of 10 pages or more.  As you can see, the difference in recording fees is significant.  If, however, the document presented for recordation involves solely a principal residence, then the recording fee is $40 without regard to the number of pages recorded.