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Why does nobody talk about the hidden fees in debt service reserves?
I spent $4,200 on a debt service reserve for a small multifamily deal in Austin last year. Thought it was just a standard lockbox thing everyone does. Turns out my lender added a 1% annual maintenance fee on top of it, and I never caught it in the closing docs. That cost me an extra $42 a month for something I couldn't even touch. Plus they required me to keep 6 months of PITI in there, which was way more than I planned. I learned the hard way to ask for a breakdown of every single fee tied to that reserve. Has anyone else gotten burned by surprise fees on a reserve account?
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blairm3512h ago
Right? It is wild how lenders sneak those little charges in there. I got hammered with a quarterly "administration fee" on my reserve that was buried in a clause about halfway through the paperwork. Caught it six months in and realized I had paid like $180 for absolutely nothing.
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wright.michael15h ago
Lol sounds like you paid extra just for the privilege of not touching your own money.
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