Did you ever think there would be that much paperwork just to apply for a loan? Did you ever wonder where all those people suddenly came from, wanting you to sign this and verify that? Didn't you already tell your loan officer everything?

Who are all these people?

Probably the first person you speak with when you get a mortgage loan is your Loan Officer. This person listens to your requirements, helps to calculate debt ratios to make sure your new mortgage will fall in line with lending guidelines, reviews your loan options, calculates monthly payments, explains your closing fees, writes your pre-approval letter and shows up at your closing. But there are other people involved in the loan process, often behind the scene.

Your Loan Processor is probably the one you'll be talking to after getting to know your Loan Officer. While it's the Loan Officer's job to take an application and collect paperwork and initial signatures, it's the Loan Processor verifies the application.

The Loan Processor will contact your employer and verify your work history and pay, will contact your bank and confirm the necessary funds to close the deal and put your loan file together in proper order for final approval. When the loan package is complete with the appraisal, title, insurance and mortgage application your loan is then sent to someone else, an Underwriter.

It's the Underwriter's responsibility to make certain your loan application meets all the parameters and conditions for the loan applied for. Conditions such as permissible credit rating, sufficient income, acceptable appraisal and no problems with title or survey work. It's also up to the Underwriter to make "exceptions" to a loan application when the applicant falls outside of a loan requirement. Higher debt ratios than current limits, for example.

After the Underwriter "signs off" the application, it now goes to "Document" stage. The actual printing of your official mortgage papers.

Depending upon where you live may dictate who draws your closing papers. Some areas require that Attorneys print your papers or review them before release. In other areas, the lenders themselves may take on that role. But after the loan is approved, your mortgage loan papers are printed for forward to your closing.

Again, depending upon where you live, there are requirements on who can officially "hold" the signing of your mortgage papers and deed. In some states it's an attorney, in others it's an escrow officer, but in any case these people witness your signatures and verify who you say you are. After you've signed all your papers and your closing agent has collected any last minute items from you per your lender's instruction, your loan "funds".

That's pretty much it. Sure, there are a lot of folks in the lending process, but there's lots of work to be done. And each department not just concentrates on one particular part of the approval process but can also act as a "check and balance" on the other stages of your application.

For more articles by David Reed, please press here.

Published: February 7, 2002

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, a veteran Mortgage Banker, successful Real Estate Consultant and author of Your Guide to VA Loans, Mortgages 101: Quick Answers to Over 250 Critical Questions About Your Home Loan, Who Says You Can't Buy a Home!, and Mortgage Confidential: What You Need to Know That Your Lender Won't Tell You, is a former columnist and Contributing Editor with San Diego-based Mortgage Originator Magazine. Reed is President of CD Reed Mortgage Bankers, Austin, TX and is a Past President of the Austin Mortgage Bankers Association.