In June my mother and I were give the name of Direct Financial to seek information on obtaining a loan for a new condo we were building. We planned on the loan being for my dad and myself together. At that time my dad was in the hospital, so my mother met with Michael Crouch, one of the mortgage lenders. Michael had my mom fill out the paperwork and actually had her forge my dad's name on the loan application. This should have been our first clue that something was not right with this company. But we took the recommendation of our builder, as we knew we would be a hard case to get a mortgage and it would take work.
Right when we applied with them, they had just changed the name of their company. This didn't raise any red flags until later down the road when they again changed names to Flagstar Bank, without informing their clients. Then last week they again changed their name. Obviously, something wasn't right.
The original pre-approval took less than a week and we were approved for $175,000 immediately. So we signed the purchase agreement for the condo and picked out all the carpeting, paints, etc. For the new build. A couple days later Michael called me that there was a mix up in my dad's social security number, they had transposed the last two numbers. I panicked as we had already signed the purchase agreement with the builder. He said we could either find a cheaper condo or back out, I said that was not possible as we already signed the purchase agreement. He thought about it and said he could put me on the mortgage. I was shocked since I was supposed to have been on it originally. This kept changing and we never really knew who was on the loan application, as Michael would forget I was supposed to be on it and then he'd say my mom was on it. This was very frustrating, but again, we didn't think we had any other choice but to deal with this company due to the state of the mortgage industry.
Everything was quiet until my dad passed away the middle of July. For the first week my mom and I were in shock and didn't really know what we were going to do about the condo. We decided to proceed ahead with the purchase and have it in her name and my name. We knew we would again need to get qualified, so we contacted Michael. We tried for over 2 weeks and he would not return our phone calls. Finally the sales manager for the builder contacted Michael's boss, Brian Sudney and Brian took over our file. I was instructed that I had 3 medical bills I needed to pay off and I then needed to open up a credit card to show that I had credit. Because of past medical bills, I had closed all my credit cards, which I found out was not a good idea. Brian said it would take a few weeks, but if I did everything he instructed this would raise my credit score and everything would be fine. I questioned him as the builder was not going to go any further with the construction, he said he had a meeting the next day with the builder and would assure them that it was fine to go ahead with construction, as he would be able to get us the mortgage. This was the beginning of September. We didn't have any more contact with Brian except to inform him that I did pay the medical bills off and was able to obtain a credit card. Around the beginning of October he said he was submitting the application to the underwriter, that he may go through FHA, but everything looked real good. Each week we would get the same response, we would know for sure the next Monday or Tuesday. Then about a week ago Brian called me at work to ask if I had any other credit such as day care, utility bills, etc. I told him no, everything was in my dad's name. I had gotten rid of almost everything when I had medical issues. I finally remembered that I did have a Sirius Satellite Radio account, he said that would work. I questioned him why my car loan wouldn't work, he said because of late payments. I told him that was not accurate, I had one late payment in Aug 06 and it was only 30 days, due to being laid off. He said it wouldn't work as I had to have a perfectly clean record.By this time I was getting very worried and voiced my concerns to the builder. They were also pretty concerned and were on top of Brian constantly.
Last week Brian called the builder to inform them that he could do nothing for us, we were out of luck basically. He never had the decency to call my mom or I to discuss this, only the builder. I knew he was trying to avoid us. The sales manager asked him numerous times to call, he finally did but only because they were pushing him. I wanted to know what companies did he try to get the loan through, he rattled off some names. I again questioned why this happened when he assured us everything was good with our application. He said he thought it was but due to me having no credit and numerous late payments on my car I could not be financed. I also questioned him about my mom being on the loan, he said he did put her on it for the income part, but it wouldn't matter that she had good credit. I knew this was wrong information.
Luckily the day before we decided to contact the bank that my parents have their current mortgage through. The loan officer sat down with us and went through all our paperwork. He found an error on my credit report that I had to clear up and then a couple bills my mom needed to pay off. He said he would gather all the information and it would go to the underwriter within two weeks, which is in his office. He said there was nothing that would hold us back from getting the loan, only a few issues that were explainable due to my dad's death and medical bills. He said they take that all into consideration and anyone that knows FHA loans would know how to process it properly. He said we would be in to the new condo by the later part of November.
Our condo has been sitting finished for 3 weeks now and the only reason we're not in there is because of the incompetence and stringing along that both Michael and Brian gave us. If we would not have contacted the bank we're dealing with now, we would have been out of luck and the builder would have lost a sale as well. On top of that, since the condo was done and had everything built to our specifications, it would have been much harder for them to sell.
I have heard so many horror stories about mortgage companies and now I can really understand how careful you need to be.
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