You can use the system to submit your FHA appraisals to the FHA Electronic Appraisal Delivery portal, or EAD. Much like the UCDP requirements a few years back, the EAD portal is FHA's version: it allows lenders that do FHA loans to electronically submit FHA appraisals to their data portal for evaluation and storage. Use the instructions in this guide to get your division setup with FHA EAD access, to then setup your company within the system, and to learn how to submit your appraisals to the EAD portal.


Pre-requisites - Lender Onboarding

To begin, if you have not already, you need to make sure that you have registered with the EAD Portal, and that you have designated a Lender Administrator in your office. This is a process called Lender Onboarding and is governed by FHA. You should reach out to your FHA representative with any questions. Here are links provided by FHA with instructions that you can follow to onboard your company to gain access to the EAD portal.


  • How to get started with Lender Onboarding: 

https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/SFH_EAD_QSFS.PDF

  • Lender Onboarding Schedule:

https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/housing/sfh/lender/origination/ead/onboarding


If you have already onboarded and have access to the EAD Portal, you can move to the next section.


Select a Lender Agent in the EAD Portal

A Lender Agent can assist you in submitting appraisals to the FHA, save you time, and make your appraisal process more efficient.


To submit appraisals to the EAD portal, you will need to login to the EAD Portal and select a Lender Agent. The Lender Agent will then receive an invitation and will accept it to connect with you. Once you have established a connection with a Lender Agent, you can begin setting up your account within the system.


FHA provides training information for lenders on how to do this. Click Here for FHA's instructions.


Enabling Your Account to Submit to the EAD Portal

Before you enable your FHA EAD connection, you will need the following information. These values are assigned once you successfully have completed the onboarding process for the EAD portal and have selected a Lender Agent.


  • Lender ID - you can access your Lender ID from the EAD portal. See page 6 of the linked instructions here to get your Lender ID.
  • Business Unit # - this is a number created when you establish a relationship to a Lender Agent in the EAD portal. See page 13 of the linked instructions here to get the appropriate Business Unit ID#.


Once you have your Lender ID and your Business Unit ID#, follow these instructions.


1. Login, and click the Relationships button at left.

2. From your Division list, find the division you want to enable, and click the down arrow at right. Then, click the Edit Settings button.



3. On the Edit Settings screen, find and click on the Billing/Services entry.



4. Find the EAD option and check this checkbox to turn it on.



5. To have every completed FHA appraisal automatically submit to the EAD when the appraiser uploads the completed file, you have the option to check the Auto Submit to FHA EAD checkbox. Since every FHA appraisal is required to be submitted to the EAD per FHA requirements, it saves you time to have the Auto-submit option enabled.



6. Enter the Lender ID and the Business Unit ID.



7. Save your changes.


Working in an EAD Order

Once you have enabled your FHA EAD connection, you can begin submitting orders to the EAD portal. You and your managed users can choose when to submit a completed appraisal to the EAD Portal.


Depending on your settings, when an appraiser uploads a completed FHA report it will either be automatically submitted to EAD, or you will need to do it manually. On successful submission, the EAD portal returns a Submission Summary Report (SSR). The SSR contains information about the appraisal submitted to EAD.


Automatic EAD Submission

The system allows you to have every completed appraisal automatically submit to the EAD portal upon delivery by the appraiser. You can check the Auto Submit to FHA EAD within a division’s settings to enable this feature.



If you choose to have completed appraisals submitted automatically to EAD, as soon as the appraiser delivers the appraisal, it will be submitted to EAD without any involvement from you or your users. The order will go to a ‘reviewing’ status and the SSR will be returned within a few minutes. When you elect to have reports automatically submitted to EAD, each time a new report is delivered, the report will automatically be sent to EAD. EAD will only review the most recent report submission. While the report is in a ‘reviewing’ status, the system safeguards the ability for an appraiser to upload another report.


Important Note on Enabling Both UAD Check and Automatic EAD Submission

If you have enabled the UAD Check, this will run prior to submission to EAD to catch any potential errors before submission. If there are no issues identified, the appraisal will be automatically submitted to EAD after the UAD Check has run without any involvement from you. If there are errors identified, the appraiser is given an opportunity to upload a revised report or use the existing one and provide an explanation. Any new reports that are uploaded will need to be manually resubmitted to EAD. The system will not do it automatically. We recommend that you work with your appraiser – who is sent the same information as you in the event of identified issues – to get any discrepancies resolved.


Manual EAD Submission

To manually submit an FHA report to the EAD portal, within an order click the Send to FHA EAD button along the right. The file will then be sent to EAD and the SSR will be returned within a few minutes. Administrators and managed users (originators/supervisors) all can use this feature.



What Happens After the Appraisal is Submitted to EAD?

Once a report is submitted to the EAD portal, the status of the order will change to ‘reviewing’ while it is being reviewed by the EAD Portal. When the file has been successfully accepted by the portal, the status of the order changes to ‘Done’ and the SSR output is returned.


If the EAD portal does not accept a report, an email notification from the system will notify you with the appropriate details so that you can work with your appraiser to correct it.


What happens if the report is rejected?

If a report fails to submit to EAD or the SSR returns with errors, here are a few troubleshooting hints:


  • Check the Communication Log - If EAD did not return an SSR output, see if there is an error in the communications log. You may need to contact customer service to have these issues addressed.
  • Check the SSR – The EAD portal may return an SSR with a note that says ‘unsuccessful’. To determine the reason it was rejected, open the SSR and review the warnings and hard stops. You can work with the appraiser to identify corrections that should be made to the report prior to it.
  • Override Hard Stops – Although there are a few hard stops that may be returned on the SSR, there are two hard stops that can be overridden within the system to obtain a successful SSR. If EAD returns hard stops of ‘Unknown Subject Address’ or ‘Appraised value is less than $5,000’, you can go to the submission screen, select an override reason, then resubmit to EAD.



Viewing a Submission Summary Report Viewing (SSR)

You can view the EAD SSR on an order by viewing the Communications tab within the order and scrolling to find the SSR PDF output.



The SSR is also available for quick access and download under the Documents tab of the order.



FHA EAD Connection Reminders:

  • This status is viewable by adding the ‘FHA EAD Status’ column to your account dashboard, which will reflect as either Successful or Not Successful.
  • You must create an account with EAD and invite your Lender Agent for the system to submit to EAD on behalf of your company. Click Here for more information on registering with EAD and inviting a Lender Agent.
  • You can elect to have all your orders automatically submitted to EAD right when the appraiser uploads the report. Mark the Auto Submit to FHA EAD checkbox on your profile to enable this feature. When an appraiser uploads a report, the UAD Check will run (if enabled), and then the report will automatically submit to EAD.
  • Only FHA appraisal types of 1004, 1004C, 1004MC, 1004D, 1025, 1073 are eligible to be submitted to EAD.