So I've been in the process of buying my first home for the past 4 weeks or so. I was working with mortgage broker (we'll call him M) as he was recommended by my realtor, who is a friend.  I got my preapproval from M about 8 months ago (yeah it's been a long journey), and stupidly, he was the only broker I had worked with until I had an offer accepted on a house on 7-15.  Without contacting me he scheduled an appraisal a day or so after my offer was accepted.  I was told this appraisal occurred after the fact.

About a week after the appraisal I received my good faith estimate, which is the first time I had seen the rate M was going to offer me... and it was .75% higher than expected and the monthly payments were estimated at over $120 than what I was initially told by him.  I immediately called him and questioned him on this, as I know I have perfect credit.  He avoided answering the question and told me the rate would be reviewed before closing.  That doesn't work for me.

So I started to seek out other lenders.  I settled on using bank "F".  They offered a rate that was much more in line with what I expected, with much lower monthly payments and lower closing costs, and they told me we can close in 10 days (still would be closed before M was able to close on it, by at least a week or two).  I got the ball rolling with them and immediately called my realtor to tell him I would no longer be using M for my mortgage.

M called me and said he was surprised, that he thought there was no problems.  I vaguely shared the details of the loan I would be getting with F.  He told me that if I didn't use lender M then I would still have to pay for the appraisal, which is $400.  At this point I decided to cease all contact with M.  Two days later he called again and left a message stating that there was an issue with my file and they had my credit score wrong, and they could offer whatever bank F was offering.  He has also told me " I personally guarantee that Bank F is lying to you and there's no way they can close in less than two weeks."   It seems like he's trying to scare me into going back to use them as a lender.

Basically I have lost all faith with lender M and do not trust a thing he tells me.  At this point going with M is impossible for me as it is clear he's lying about something, if not everything.

So M emailed me claiming that because I "E-signed" my loan application (which was done before I first even saw the rate they were offering), I am on the hook for the appraisal fee because "the appraiser deserves to be paid"... well I don't disagree with that, but I don't think I should be the one to pay for it.  He even sent me a credit card authorization form for me to fill out and return to him. While it would be easy to pay them to go away, that's my hard earned money going down the drain for nothing. I do not believe that he has any legal basis to collect the appraisal fee, anyone have an opinion on this?

Sorry for the long winded post, I figured it would be best to try and get in most of the details that may be relevant.  

Thanks in advance for any advice or opinions!

It all depends on what is written into the small print of the "Contract" you have with 'M'. I suggest reading through the docs and see if there is any mention of who pays for such things. Also, is there anything requiring 'M' to get your go-ahead on the Appraisal?

Details, man, details!!

Hope it works out for you.

I was just digging through my application with M, there is nothing stating that I must pay the fees if I withdraw from the application.  

As for if M needed my approval to get the appraisal, he scheduled the appraisal before I had even started my application with them.  The only thing I had done with M before that was my acquire my preapproval.

ETA: there is a section that shows all the fees and there is a series of letter codes for " lender paid / borrower paid / seller paid" but it appears to not be filled out correctly as none of the fees are labeled as such.

If you didn't ask for an appraisal, you don't pay for the appraisal.

You don't want to use the appraiser they suggest anyways, you want to get your own, independent appraiser that you can trust.

Getting my own appraisal would be kind of moot point.  The bank hires their appraiser to ensure that they are going to be taking on a good investment and they have made it clear that they will ONLY use the appraisal that they ordered.

Even if I did order my own, I'm confident my offer is within 2% of what the appraisal will be.  There's a good amount of comps to look at in the area.

Obviously there is more to this story than you are telling, cause somehow M found out private details about the house you made an offer on.....

Did you tell him? Did your realtor? If so why? Unless one of you wanted him to move forward with the loan.

Nothing unusual about rates changing 8 months later.

How big of a change we talking here?

Not going to happen if you want a conforming mortgage.

I would assume that my realtor told M about the accepted offer.

I understand that rates change, but I had no quoted rate and no locked in rate up until this application was started.

Are you asking what the difference in rate is between M and F? On the APR side M is nearly a full percent higher than F.  Going with F will save nearly $30k over the life of the loan

Yeah that is what I was asking. A full percent is a big difference.

I stopped in my local boa on the way to my signing and they were .625 instead of .750 so my broker matched them.

Your REALTOR  is your legal representative. They submitted your offer on the property. Your REALTOR has to tell you if that appraisal bill is your responsibility or not, and why. -W

Well there is your problem.

First, find out who your realtor recommends for the home inspection, and then use someone else.

Second, review every bit of email traffic with M and make sure you didn't inadvertently e-sign anything.

Inspection is done already, was completed by my own inspector who did a very thorough job.

The only document I e-signed was the application. I reviewed the application and there are no statements in there regarding who pays what, and who pays for the appraisal in the event the application is withdrawn.

My guess is the mortgage broker jumped the gun on ordering the appraisals because he didn't know you were shopping the mortgage.  Whenever we make loans we either get the appraisal fee up front from the borrower or we have the borrower sign a reimbursal agreement stating the borrower will pay us back for the appraisal.

He probably doesn't want to eat the fee, but if you didn't sign anything statin you would pay for the appraisal then I don't think you legally have to pay for it.