Editorial policy

Mission and scope

HearthLoan publishes calculators and explanatory guides covering mortgage refinancing in the United States. We are an independent editorial site — not a lender, not a broker, not a mortgage originator. We do not collect personal financial information through this site.

Our promise is narrow and specific: every page that touches a financial product produces estimates that you can verify against your actual Loan Estimate. Every claim has a source. Every assumption is stated.

Creator–reviewer model

Every published page names its creator, linked to an author profile that lists credentials and external profiles. Once a reviewer seat is filled, the pages that reviewer checks will also carry the reviewer's name, linked to a profile with credentials (LinkedIn, NMLS Consumer Access, CFP Board, etc.). Both reviewer seats are open today, so no page on this site has been checked by a licensed reviewer yet.

Roles:

• Creator — writes the page, designs the calculator logic, picks examples, sets the explanatory tone. Required to disclose role and any financial credentials.
• Reviewer (mortgage) — NMLS-licensed mortgage professional. Reviews every claim involving lender practices, product eligibility, state-specific rules, and pricing.
• Reviewer (planning) — Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) or CPA. Reviews content on the trade-offs between refinancing and other uses of capital (debt payoff, savings, investments, tax effects).

While the reviewer seats are open, we publish only calculators, definitions, state data and pages about how this site works. The refinance calculator shows a Position open badge where the reviewer's name will go. We don't ship lender-specific guidance without an NMLS-licensed reviewer.

Sourcing standards

Every quantitative claim is sourced. We prefer, in order:

1. Primary public data: HUD Mortgagee Letters, VA Funding Fee schedule, IRS publications, state revenue and insurance department filings.
2. Government statistical sources: Census American Community Survey, FHFA, Federal Reserve Board, CFPB.
3. Major industry research: Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, Mortgage Bankers Association forecasts, Insurance Information Institute, NAIC reports, Fannie Mae LLPA matrices.
4. Recognized academic or peer-reviewed work for theoretical claims.

We do not cite other personal-finance media as primary sources. If a number is conventional industry knowledge but we can't pin a primary source, we say so explicitly.

Corrections process

When we publish an error, we want to know. Send the page URL and the correction to [email protected] or use the addresses on our contact page.

Response standards:

• Acknowledgment within 2 business days.
• Investigation and decision within 7 business days for non-urgent corrections.
• Material errors affecting current calculations are corrected the same business day and flagged with a visible Corrected on [date] note at the top of the page.
• Minor errors (typos, formatting) are corrected without notation.

Corrections do not silently rewrite history. The home page, the calculators and the pages about how we work show a Last updated date.

Freshness and updates

Calculator pages are reviewed at least quarterly. Rate, tax, and regulatory data is re-verified during each review. Pages that involve numbers we don't control (state defaults, FHA MIP rates, VA funding fees) are re-pulled from primary sources rather than copied from the previous version.

If a page is older than 12 months and no review has occurred, the byline shows a Review overdue indicator and the page is deprioritized in our internal queue until reviewed.

Editorial independence

HearthLoan is an editorial publisher. We are not paid by lenders to feature their products, and lenders do not have approval over our content. See How we make money for the full revenue disclosure.

If we publish lender comparisons in the future, the methodology will be public, the data set will be reproducible, and any affiliate or referral relationships will be disclosed inline on the page where they appear — not buried in a footer.

Use of AI tools

We use AI tools for drafting, summarization, and research support. We do not publish AI-generated content without a human editor reviewing every sentence and every number. The one exception is the Spanish edition: it is an AI-assisted translation of the English pages, published before a native-speaker editor has reviewed it, and every Spanish page says so. Calculator code, formulas, and state-specific data tables are human-written. See AI disclosure for the full breakdown.

What we will not publish

Some things are out of scope:

• Personalized financial advice. We don't know your full situation. Speak to a licensed mortgage professional or CFP for advice specific to you.
• Tax advice. Tax effects of refinancing depend on whether you itemize, your marginal rate, and how you use cash-out proceeds. Consult a CPA or tax attorney.
• Lender comparisons without disclosure. We will not rank lenders on commercial relationships alone. If we publish a "best lender" list, the criteria will be visible and the data will be auditable.
• Black-box estimates. Every calculator on this site shows its formula and its assumptions. If we can't show our work, we don't publish the calculator.

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Questions about how something on this site was researched or reviewed? Email [email protected]. We answer.