The funder's term sheet says "all-in" but the wire instructions list a separate document preparation fee

The assumption doing the most work in your analysis is that the term sheet and wire instructions are of equal standing as contract documents. They often are not. A term sheet in transactional funding is frequently an expression of intent, and the wire instructions, issued by the funder's own attorney and carrying the actual movement of funds, can be drafted to control. If neither document cross-references the other and neither contains a merger clause or hierarchy language, you are left arguing intent in a dispute where the other side has already been paid. That is a structurally weak position.

The risk you did not name is title company positioning. Once the funder's wire hits escrow and the title company treats the document prep fee as a lender fee, the title company has implicitly validated the wire instructions as the operative instrument. They are not adjudicating enforceability, they are disbursing. That treatment, even if informal, creates a paper record that the charge was accepted without objection at closing, which complicates any post-closing dispute significantly.

The pattern you are describing, term sheet silent on costs that appear in wire instructions, is worth killing in the commitment stage. The fix is a single-document requirement or a written cross-reference before you sign the term sheet, something like "this term sheet constitutes the complete fee disclosure and all closing instructions are subject to its terms." Whether that language is enforceable in your jurisdiction and how it interacts with your title company's standard procedures is a question for a real estate attorney before you deploy it.

On your specific question about title company treatment: the more relevant variable is whether the title company's closing instructions were issued before or after the funder's wire instructions arrived, and which document the title company acknowledged as controlling in writing. Did you or the wholesaler receive a signed closing disclosure or settlement statement before funding that itemized the 150 separately?

The controlling document question is real, but the more immediate fix is demanding a HUD-1 or settlement statement preview before the funding wire goes out, because that is the moment when every line item becomes visible and you still have negotiating position. Once funds are in escrow and the buyer is waiting, you have none.

The pattern you are describing is essentially a split disclosure structure, where the term sheet handles the relationship and the wire instructions handle the transaction, and funders who use it are not always doing so cynically. Sometimes it is just sloppy drafting by an attorney who built the wire template for a different context. The problem is that sloppiness and bad faith produce identical outcomes at the closing table.

The cross-reference language you mentioned is the right instinct, but the sharper version is a single sentence in the term sheet that reads something like "no fee, charge, or cost of any kind will appear in the settlement statement or wire instructions that is not itemized in this agreement." That language does not require a lawyer to draft and it forces a conversation before you sign anything.

What does your current term sheet say about attorney fees billed by the funder's own counsel, specifically?