My wife and I decided to buy our first house. We went through the First Time Home Buyer's class in the area and were going through Fifth Third because they seemed very nice in all the branches we went to, and promised a discount when you have a home loan through them and an account. We went to a branch and were approved right away. We then went through the process of finding a home. We found one and contacted the bank to tell them we want to proceed.
The sellers were nice enough to put a new roof on the house, because the old one was the original. They were ready to sell us the house from the day they signed the contract.
Then the fun began...
The loan officer asked for paperwork. He had us email and fax it. He said it was easier and faster to do that. We had no problem doing so. We gave him everything and a couple of weeks later he said he needed more. We sent him what he asked for, and he told me that's all he needed. It was getting very close to the original closing date, but he reassured me we will close on time. Then it was the Friday before closing on Monday. I called my realtor and asked him if the loan officer contacted him, he told me no. We both contacted my loan officer's boss and all of a sudden the loan officer was rushing to his office to do some of our paperwork. Suffice it to say we did not close on Monday.
Since hardly anyone closes on the original date, I wasn't very worried. We signed an addendum to the contract and waited.
Then a week later I recieved a call from the Ohio Fifth Third (their headquarters) and spoke to another loan officer. She asked for more information. I emailed it to her and we waited. A few days later she asked for more information. Again. Again. Again. We were getting frustrated.
Then our local loan officer asked for more information. We sent THAT to him. We asked how much more they needed. He said that was it, he was just waiting for the underwriters to aprove everything.
The woman from Ohio asked for more information at that time. We were very frustrated and my wife told her she doesn't want to give her any more information because our local loan officer told us that's all we had to do.
The woman was angry with us and I went on a conference call with both loan officers. It turns out our local officer didn't have the authority to tell us we don't need to give any more information and only the woman from Ohio did. Now we were afraid because we gave her a hard time, not realizing she was the underwriter (she told me she was only a loan officer).
After all this and a total of 5 addendums (more than average according to my realtor), we finally closed over two months after our original closing date. The seller's realtor asked what took so long, and we just shook our heads. We told her to be careful with Fifth Third Bank.
After all this, we recieved a letter from another mortgage company a month and a half later. Fifth Third already sold our mortgage! What is it with these people? Nonetheless it's better they sold it, so we don't have to deal with them for the next thirty years. We are going to close our account with them and going with our old bank.
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