Every closing I have been involved in personally has had the HUD form, which shows all the costs involved with the selling and buying the house, has always shown up at  the last minute. While most buyers are under the misconception that the form should be available a day ahead of time, the Hartford Courant has a good article that explains otherwise.

Although realty agents and consumers may believe that federal rules guarantee them the right to see the final closing numbers a day ahead of settlement, that’s not completely accurate. Washington, D.C., lawyer Phillip L. Schulman of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP, an expert on federal real estate regulations, says the law requires a closing agent to provide a borrower the HUD-1 figures one business day in advance only “if the borrower requests” such a review. Equally important, Schulman said, the closing agent is required to provide only “whatever figures [the agent] actually has received up until that time” from other parties in the transaction.

“The fact is that some of these numbers come in very late in the process,” just hours or even minutes before the scheduled settlement time, Schulman said.

Another widely misunderstood point: The federal agency that regulates real estate settlement procedures has no enforcement powers when closing agents fail to provide advance copies of the HUD-1 to consumers who request them.

Ivy Jackson, who heads the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s investigation unit on settlement complaints, said that “we simply do not have the authority” under current federal law to penalize a firm that ignores consumers’ requests to review settlement information in advance.

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3. I Hate My Agent!