Today I had a purchase that almost fell apart. 

A single lady went to buy a home.  She has a good score 750+, 5% down, and 4 months payments in the bank.  This seemed like a dream transaction right? Wrong, the buyer’s father wanted to help his daughter out, so he deposited have of the down payment into escrow, and a check written from his account. 

Sounds innocent enough; however Fannie Mae does not allow gift funds if the borrower is not putting down at least 5% of there own funds.  This could have been avoided, if the father had given her the 20k a few months before she found the home, the lender would have been fine with the whole transaction. 

So long story short, if you have a client whose parents are helping with a down payment, call your lender and see how they would like to see that structured before going into escrow.