Use these instructions to get started offering the FHA Electronic Appraisal Delivery (EAD) portal to your clients. From the business side of registering to be a Lender Agent who submits appraisals to the EAD portal on behalf of lenders, to the setup work in Appraisal Firewall, this guide will walk you step by step through what needs to get done as a Manager working in Appraisal Firewall technology. 


Important Note - FHA EAD Addendum Required 

Before proceeding, you need to make sure that you have completed, signed, and return back the Appraisal Firewall FHA EAD Addendum. 


Contact Danielle Walker at Danielle.Walker@SharperLending.com or (800) 452-1174 ext. 1260 to get this addendum, or for more information.


Content Includes:


Prerequisites - Lender Onboarding

To begin, if your lender has not already, they need to make sure that their company is registered with FHA Connection, and that they have designated a Lender Administrator in their office. This is a process governed by FHA, and your lenders should reach out to their FHA representative with any questions.


Here are links provided by FHA with instructions that they can follow.




Lender Agent Registration 

You need to register your company with EAD to become a Lender Agent (Note - if you are already a Lender Agent, you can skip this step). You can then submit appraisals to the EAD portal on behalf of lenders. This helps your clients by reducing the impact that this FHA requirement will have on a their already-complex real estate appraisal life cycle. 


You will need your Lender Agent registration credentials to complete the setup process within the Appraisal Firewall technology platform. Once you are registered, your company name will be listed in the EAD portal as an available Lender Agent that lenders can select. 


Two things to know about becoming an EAD Portal Lender Agent 

First, you need to know that you only need to register once. After you are registered, any lender can pick you as a Lender Agent from that point forward. 


Second, a lender must register you as a Lender Agent. This is because they have the relationship with FHA. Since the EAD portal is owned by the FHA, you cannot directly request to be a Lender Agent for the FHA EAD portal. 


How do I get registered as a Lender Agent? 

To get started, you should pick one of your clients that you have a strong relationship with that you know does FHA lending and have them register you as a Lender Agent. Follow these steps.


1. Profile your lenders using Appraisal Firewall. Identify one of your lender clients that you have a strong relationship with that does FHA lending in Appraisal Firewall.


2. Contact this lender. Call or email them and let them know that you want to register as a Lender Agent in the FHA EAD portal. Make sure they know that they benefit from you being a Lender Agent: you can submit appraisals to the portal on their behalf, saving them time and improving process efficiency.


3. Let the lender know that they need to fill out this form. Here is the Lender Agent Registration Form that your lender will need to fill out. The EAD Administrator in your lender's office needs to complete this. It is recommended that you work with the lender EAD Administrator as they fill this form out so that your company name and information is correct. See the next section for more information on the EAD Administrator role in a lender's office.


https://www.veros.com/ead-portal-lender-agent-request-form


4. Once this form has been filled out and submitted, the EAD portal will receive it and reach out to you to confirm that the lender has registered you as a Lender Agent in the EAD portal.


5. According to this form, you will be a Lender Agent within 2-3 business days of the EAD portal receiving the completed Lender Agent Registration Form. Remember - this form only needs to be filled out one time by your lender.


6. Once you are a Lender Agent, your lenders need to invite you to be their Lender Agent within the EAD portal. They should know how to do this. If they are confused, have them contact their FHA representative, or have them refer to the EAD portal user guide for how to do this.


Manager Setup for EAD in Appraisal Firewall

Once you have been assigned and received your Lender Agent credentials from Veros, you can enable your Manager for EAD submission on behalf of your clients in Appraisal Firewall. Follow these instructions.


1. Login to your Manager account, and in the upper left, click the Settings gear icon.



2. In the Settings screen, expand the Private Label/UCDP & FHA EAD Direct Integration Credentials section.



3. Find the FHA EAD Direct Integration Credentials section, and enter your Lender Agent Username and Password provided to you by Veros (the technology provider for the EAD Portal).



4. Save your changes. When the save completes, your Manager is now enabled for EAD

submissions, and you can offer this interface out to your lenders.


5. The final step in the EAD setup process is to get your lender clients setup at the division level to use this interface. Your lenders' divisions will each have their own credentials that they will need to enter in Appraisal Firewall. You then can either have your lenders setup their divisions for EAD Portal submissions, or you can setup your lenders' divisions on their behalf. 


6. If your lenders will setup themselves, you can refer your lenders to the private label friendly instructions in the Appraisal Firewall Help Center. 


Billing Information for FHA EAD Appraisals 

Like the UCDP charge, Appraisal Firewall passes on the EAD portal submission charge straight through to you. You can choose to pass this on to your clients by increasing your transaction fees in your Manager Profile screen if you choose.


Keep in mind that, if you increase your transaction fee to cover this cost, it will impact all transactions, including non-EAD ones. 


Instructions for Setting up Lenders' Divisions on Their Behalf 

If your lenders want you to set up their EAD connection for them, you can easily do this! You just need to get a couple pieces of information from them before you can proceed.


  • Lender ID
  • Business Unit #


These values are assigned to the lender when they successfully have completed the onboarding process for the EAD portal. Once you have obtained this information from the client you want to setup, follow these instructions.


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


2. From the Lender list, click the down arrow at right to expand this lender's information, and click the Manage Divisions button.


3. On the Divisions screen for this lender, find the division you want to enable, and click the down arrow at right. Then, click the Edit Settings button.



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



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



6. 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 your clients time to have the Auto-submit option enabled.



7. Enter the Lender ID and the Business Unit ID that you previously received from your lender.



8. Save your changes.


Tracking and Managing Lender EAD Submissions

You can keep track of all appraisals that are submitted to the EAD portal from your Billing Activity management report. When you run this management report, there will be an FHA EAD Count column which will display all EAD submissions in the date range you selected.


See the Working with the FHA EAD Connection lender user guide for information on what the workflow looks like within Appraisal Firewall for your lender clients.