Dave wrote:
Sounds like just an excuse to
shade things towards the lender. The issue came up when talking to a local
banker (clerk) who gave me the numbers I listed previously, but referred to
them as from the 'Home Office' and interestingly were not the numbers she
came up with on her desktop mortgage calculator.

Sounds to me more like the game of "telephone" and lots of room for
human error.

You mentioned -
the software implementation might be proprietary. But the methodology is
not; it is defined by US federal regulations.

What is the US regulation methodology?

I was referring to computational methods defined by HMDA and HOEPA.
"Heavy stuff" and really not relevant. I was just making the point
that __those__ algorithms are defined by the
US federal government. They are not proprietary.

accumulates interest for a few days before the monthly payment
window begins, for example to align payments with some "nice" time of
the month like the 1st, 15th, or end of the month.

This is probably one of the better possibilities.

Actually, on second thought, I think it is unlikely. The common
practice is to add such "prepaid interest" to the loan fees, which are
paid on the front end. I have never heard of adding it to the loan
principal. I mentioned it before without really thinking about it,
based on what-if numerical experiments.

Again, we need to see the
amortization schedule. BTW, how can I get it to you, since I believe
msnewsgroups does allow attachments? Can I just use ?

Yes.

Stay tuned - I'll let you know when the schedule arrives

Thanks. You've piqued my curiosity.