Carly Neals applied in May 2010 with PNC Mortgage to get a home loan refinance on the house she owns jointly with her husband in Wexford, PA. Neals is the mother of three children, the youngest was born on June 21, 2010, and PNC determined, based on Fannie Mae’s underwriting guidelines, that her request to borrow 90% of the value of her home required private mortgage insurance. Mortgage lenders typically require applicants seeking to borrow more than 80 percent of their home’s value to obtain mortgage insurance. Neals’s loan application documented her wage and bonus income from her full-time job for the previous two years. This documentation included pay stubs from April 29, 2010, and May 13, 2010, showing net pay of $2,148.98 in each two-week pay period. After giving birth to her youngest son on June 21, 2010, Neals began a period of fully paid maternity leave from her job.
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