One of the important components of the new HUD-1 Settlement Statement is a "tie-in" to the lender-issued Good Faith Estimate (GFE).
The vision: A borrower sitting at the closing table with the GFE on the left and the HUD-1 on the right, going from one to the other making sure they line up. The new HUD-1 even has the appropriate GFE column number (see figure above) to help with this. Ideally, all figures match identically. More likely the HUD-1 figures will be equal to or less than those on the GFE, and must be unless they fall within a set tolerance or the vendor was selected by the borrower (more on both in a subsequent post).
Time will tell whether this does in fact create a better, more transparent experience for the borrower, or whether this just adds more time to an already lengthy, document-intensive process.
