Exceptions for Mortgages and Maybe One Day… Restaurants

Earlier this month, my wife and I were trying to sync up our weekend schedules. Between the kids’ sports, birthday parties, social events, and just general life, we had to figure out who needed to be where and when.

That’s when we both realized we’d been so busy at work that we forgot our wedding anniversary was also that weekend (we both thought it was the following one).

First of all, it's hard to describe the momentary panic followed by a wave of relief when I realized both of us had forgotten our anniversary and it wasn't just me.

Second, I did what any good husband would do: I sent a desperate email to The French Laundry, explaining my situation and basically begging for any seat at any time if they could make an exception for me that weekend.

That got me thinking—do other industries handle exceptions the same way the mortgage industry does?

Let's recap the mortgage price exception process really fast from 35,000 feet:

1. LO requests a PE through the PPE UI at the time of lock.
2. LO identifies the reason they're competing.
3. LO writes a note to the Lock Desk that hopefully says something better than, "Dude, just approve it, I need this."
4. LO uploads supporting documentation via the UI.
5. If the PE request exceeds automation thresholds, an approver reviews the documentation and decides whether to approve, reject, or counteroffer.
6. If approved, lock data and supporting documentation are pushed into the LOS.
7. Three months later, cap markets provides the compliance team a report on all closed loans with PEs.
8. Three months after that, a compliance officer sends you an email asking you to justify your decision on specific borrowers.
9. A week later, after leaving the email marked as unread and snoozing every reminder 32 times, you finally provide all the supporting documentation.
10. Spend the next month with a 'hope and pray' strategy that there are no follow-up questions.

By the way, if your PPE can't handle at least steps 1-8, please give Polly a call.

Now, back to my wedding anniversary and The French Laundry… do restaurants have such a rigorous process for exceptions? Is Fair Dining or the Consumer Dining Protection Bureau a thing?

Let's take the mortgage process, but this time for food. Here's what I did in my email to The French Laundry:

1. I requested a dining exception on their online reservation portal.
2. I explained how I totally botched my wedding anniversary and would take anything they could give me.
3. I offered to upload a copy of my wedding license and an angry photo of my wife, but unfortunately, there was no UI for that.
4. I mentioned that my wife is vegetarian and suggested they consider the huge Gain on Sale (GOS) potential because, seriously, how much do carrots and tomatoes cost?
5. For compensating factors, I noted that I have dozens of Instagram followers and an extremely high engagement rate among family and grad school classmates.

Sadly, I'll never know how far I made it in the process because they never responded to my exception request. It's unlikely, but maybe nine months from now, a compliance officer will ask their host why they declined an exception request from an Asian male with plenty of supporting documentation.

This thought leadership article was originally featured on Chrisman Commentary.


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Marcus Lam is Head of Solutions Engineering at Polly, operator of the mortgage industry's first vertically integrated, data-driven capital markets software platform. For more information, follow Polly on LinkedIn or visit www.polly.io.