I doubt seriously that the underwriter has a friggin' clue what an 'audited' financial statement even IS !

The letter I have is from the AICPA (I've modified it a bit over the years...); it basically says "read the damned tax return & form your OWN opinion of the borrower's credit worthiness" but in a lot more words.

I've had push back before (back when these requests were fast/furious) but I've never had a client lose a loan because of the wording on the letter.

They want:

1) a piece of paper for their files

2) someone ELSE on the potential hook in case of default.