My husband and I are excited as we're about to close on our first home purchase. Two hours before we close we are told that our closing costs are $1900. We were stunned! That was $1100 more than was explained to us on our Good Faith Estimate (GFE).
We call our CTX contact, Steve Parks, to inquire as to the huge difference. With our help and our realtor's help, he begins comparing our GFE with our final settlement papers. Come to find out, he says he "forgot to disclose the lender's administration fees". I let him know that since he forgot, he can waive them. It was his mistake. He states he has no control over it, the charges must stay. He then tries to "help us", by telling us we should "advance on a credit card", "borrow money from our family members", "recontract the loan to include the fees", and lastly "get the sellers to pay for it." I refused all the suggestions as I felt it was HIS fault he didn't disclose it. He was aggressive and pushy and wouldn't take NO for an answer.
Many people don't know that federal laws protect the consumer when it comes to final closing costs. Mortgage companies MUST disclose any charges regarding closing costs. If something changes or they realize a mistake, they MUST redisclose or the consumer is not held responsible. This mortgage team did not RE-disclose when our loan papers went from A - to B loan papers because of another mistake he made. Nor did they RE-disclose a GFE when they "forgot" to include administration fees.
Steve Parks called us for two days after we fired them to try to get our business back. He will never get our business again, nor will he get any business from anyone we know. He may think he lost a $130k home loan, but he's losing much more than that when we share our story with friends and family.
A good referral could bring tons more business if he'd just do it ethically!
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