HookerChemical
09-09-2008, 01:35 PM
I bought a house and it was the most excruciating experience of my life. Nearly everybody involved seemed incompetent.
Back in June, my fiancée and I put in an offer on a house. We had an inspector come out and look it over. Based on his report, we thought it would take a little work to patch it up, but it was nothing we weren’t willing to take on. A family friend who’s a builder took 15 minutes to look the house over and told us to cancel our offer and run like hell. There were pipes coming and going where they shouldn’t be, signs the bottom floor of the addition would be constantly flooded during the rainy season, signs the plumbing was shoddy, and the foundation was unreinforced. The only mention of these problems in the inspector’s report was that the bath drain was slow. Mr. Inspector, your job is to point out things that could be a problem in the future that I, as an office worker who’s never owned a home, wouldn’t recognize as strange.
My fiancée turned and ran in time to save our earnest deposit. We got back on the horse and were looking at new homes the next weekend. We found another house and made our offer. A couple counters later, we were in contract. We fill out the loan application forms, the disclosure forms, and send in copies of our financial information; the paperwork stuff we were expecting and were ready for. We sit back and wait. We call our loan officer to find out where our application is. The lender says it’s in the queue, which isn’t very descriptive. The time to remove contingencies comes, but we haven’t heard back the lender. After assurances from our agent, the loan officer, and the lender, my fiancée and I remove the contingencies, putting our earnest deposit at risk if something falls through.
And we wait. More calls to loan officer. More waiting. Finally, the Monday of the week we are supposed to close, the lender requests more information. They need a copy of my most recent bank statement, contact information for my previous employer, copies of permits for an addition that doesn’t exist, and confirmation that my fiancée and I have taken a home buyer training course.
Are you fucking kidding me? You know that the usual closing period for houses in the area is 40 days, and you don’t bother to look for 32 days? You sat on our application for four weeks without even looking at it to see if it was complete? You didn’t think you should mention the training course as part of the loan application? The reason you need an updated bank statement is because you’ve had my information so long it’s out of date.
As an aside, I consult and interface between corporations and government agencies. Every one of those agencies checks an application package for completeness in a timely matter, even if they won’t get to processing the information until several months later. When the government bureaucracy is making the lenders look efficient and responsive, it’s no wonder the lending industry is collapsing.
Clearly, we’re not going to close on time. My fiancée and I gather the information they need (some of which they already had), find a training course, and get an extension from the seller. A week later, the lender says they can’t contact my employer to confirm my employment. It’s nice that they let us know this in a timely manner so we can protect the earnest money we’ve already put at risk.
They’re five weeks in and they haven’t thought to mention they haven’t been able to contact my current employer. I called in to the phone number I provided to the lender. I asked for HR. I immediately received the person the lender needed to contact, who explained exactly which forms they needed to fax to a number I also provided.
The application eventually made its way to the underwriter, where I received a financial colonoscopy. They needed stubs from every deposit that wasn’t within a few dollars of the paystubs that I had already scanned and sent in with the application. This new requirement created several new problems.
I remember that one of the deposits was at least three checks from my employer I cashed at the same time. The problem is that no matter which stubs I put together, I cannot match the deposit. I come 500-1000 dollars short and cannot account for the discrepancy. I kept my stubs but I never imagined I’d need to record the date I deposited them. I call up my bank and ask for copies of the checks to be mailed to me. It will take them a week to send the copies.
One of the deposits was bonds that had been given to me five to ten years ago. Bonds don’t have stubs. I didn’t photocopy them before I deposited them. When I contacted the bank for the scans, the customer service person told me they only have scans of checks and that no scans were available.
A week later, the scans arrive. The money I couldn’t account for was the government stimulus check. I scanned and sent in the copied checks. A few days later, I was told the underwriter wasn’t going to approve the loan without scans of the bonds. At this point we were on our second extension with the seller and the seller wasn’t going to sign another, so we can’t try another lender.
I want to make this clear: the loan wasn’t going to be underwritten not because we couldn’t make the monthly payments, and not because we didn’t have enough left in our account after closing. We had about 10,000 more in the bank wants in the account as a safety net, but the underwriter wouldn’t approve the loan because there was a 3,000 dollar deposit and they needed to see scans of the bonds. Thank Og I didn’t ever deposit cash anywhere in the four months of financial information the lender required.
I managed to track down the individual who cashed my bonds, who is able to pull the branch records and provide documentation. Apparently, cashing 50 small bonds at the same time is unusual and memorable, so she knew where to look for the right information and was willing to help me out. So I managed to find the next item on the home purchase scavenger hunt list and send it in on a Thursday afternoon. Friday morning, I was told that the documents would be drawn for signing by Monday morning.
Reader, you think that is the end of the saga, but, alas, the saga continued.
On Monday, our loan officer called to see if the docs were ready for signing on Tuesday. There was no reply until Tuesday, when we were informed that our rate lock had expired and our rate would be a half point higher than we had been promised. My fiancée and I could afford the rate increase, but we’d be damned if we were going to pay 40 dollars a month to the lender because they dragged the process out so long the rate went up.
There were several calls over the next 24 hours. I gathered a list of agencies to file complaints with. I asked the lender to explain how this differed from a bait and switch where they promise a low rate, see rates go up, then delay long enough to unlock the rate. I never directly threatened to file complaints or accused them of bait and switch. Finally, we got the rate we were promised back.
We signed docs that weekend. For the next week, everything seemed to take a day longer than it was supposed to, which was a problem because the new rate lock expired that Friday. Wednesday, we we informed that the docs we signed had a problem; they referred to us as “unmarried” instead of “single.” They sent over a revised version, which we faxed the next day. The problem is that the lender lost the fax. It was the fucking day before our rate expires (again), the paperwork needed to be in before Friday afternoon for everything to record, and they lost the fucking fax. After we called them and were told “It’s here in my hands,” they lost it.
Friday, we refaxed the document. And we waited. We called to confirm that everything would record. Our loan officer called to confirm everything would record. 5PM came and went. Still no word. Finally, on Monday, we received confirmation that, oh, yeah, everything did record. Thanks for letting us know.
So nearly a month after the original closing date, my fiancée and I have a house.
Lending is a strange fucked up microcosm of the economy. If I were as unresponsive to my clients as the lender and underwriter were, I’d never get their business again. If I don’t start a project in time to complete it on time, I won’t get any more projects from that client. If I contacted my clients every week with a new information request for the same project every week, I’d never get their business again. If my client had to resend the same form no fewer than three times, I’d never get their business.
You'll have to live with my spelling and editing mistakes. TLDPR.
Back in June, my fiancée and I put in an offer on a house. We had an inspector come out and look it over. Based on his report, we thought it would take a little work to patch it up, but it was nothing we weren’t willing to take on. A family friend who’s a builder took 15 minutes to look the house over and told us to cancel our offer and run like hell. There were pipes coming and going where they shouldn’t be, signs the bottom floor of the addition would be constantly flooded during the rainy season, signs the plumbing was shoddy, and the foundation was unreinforced. The only mention of these problems in the inspector’s report was that the bath drain was slow. Mr. Inspector, your job is to point out things that could be a problem in the future that I, as an office worker who’s never owned a home, wouldn’t recognize as strange.
My fiancée turned and ran in time to save our earnest deposit. We got back on the horse and were looking at new homes the next weekend. We found another house and made our offer. A couple counters later, we were in contract. We fill out the loan application forms, the disclosure forms, and send in copies of our financial information; the paperwork stuff we were expecting and were ready for. We sit back and wait. We call our loan officer to find out where our application is. The lender says it’s in the queue, which isn’t very descriptive. The time to remove contingencies comes, but we haven’t heard back the lender. After assurances from our agent, the loan officer, and the lender, my fiancée and I remove the contingencies, putting our earnest deposit at risk if something falls through.
And we wait. More calls to loan officer. More waiting. Finally, the Monday of the week we are supposed to close, the lender requests more information. They need a copy of my most recent bank statement, contact information for my previous employer, copies of permits for an addition that doesn’t exist, and confirmation that my fiancée and I have taken a home buyer training course.
Are you fucking kidding me? You know that the usual closing period for houses in the area is 40 days, and you don’t bother to look for 32 days? You sat on our application for four weeks without even looking at it to see if it was complete? You didn’t think you should mention the training course as part of the loan application? The reason you need an updated bank statement is because you’ve had my information so long it’s out of date.
As an aside, I consult and interface between corporations and government agencies. Every one of those agencies checks an application package for completeness in a timely matter, even if they won’t get to processing the information until several months later. When the government bureaucracy is making the lenders look efficient and responsive, it’s no wonder the lending industry is collapsing.
Clearly, we’re not going to close on time. My fiancée and I gather the information they need (some of which they already had), find a training course, and get an extension from the seller. A week later, the lender says they can’t contact my employer to confirm my employment. It’s nice that they let us know this in a timely manner so we can protect the earnest money we’ve already put at risk.
They’re five weeks in and they haven’t thought to mention they haven’t been able to contact my current employer. I called in to the phone number I provided to the lender. I asked for HR. I immediately received the person the lender needed to contact, who explained exactly which forms they needed to fax to a number I also provided.
The application eventually made its way to the underwriter, where I received a financial colonoscopy. They needed stubs from every deposit that wasn’t within a few dollars of the paystubs that I had already scanned and sent in with the application. This new requirement created several new problems.
I remember that one of the deposits was at least three checks from my employer I cashed at the same time. The problem is that no matter which stubs I put together, I cannot match the deposit. I come 500-1000 dollars short and cannot account for the discrepancy. I kept my stubs but I never imagined I’d need to record the date I deposited them. I call up my bank and ask for copies of the checks to be mailed to me. It will take them a week to send the copies.
One of the deposits was bonds that had been given to me five to ten years ago. Bonds don’t have stubs. I didn’t photocopy them before I deposited them. When I contacted the bank for the scans, the customer service person told me they only have scans of checks and that no scans were available.
A week later, the scans arrive. The money I couldn’t account for was the government stimulus check. I scanned and sent in the copied checks. A few days later, I was told the underwriter wasn’t going to approve the loan without scans of the bonds. At this point we were on our second extension with the seller and the seller wasn’t going to sign another, so we can’t try another lender.
I want to make this clear: the loan wasn’t going to be underwritten not because we couldn’t make the monthly payments, and not because we didn’t have enough left in our account after closing. We had about 10,000 more in the bank wants in the account as a safety net, but the underwriter wouldn’t approve the loan because there was a 3,000 dollar deposit and they needed to see scans of the bonds. Thank Og I didn’t ever deposit cash anywhere in the four months of financial information the lender required.
I managed to track down the individual who cashed my bonds, who is able to pull the branch records and provide documentation. Apparently, cashing 50 small bonds at the same time is unusual and memorable, so she knew where to look for the right information and was willing to help me out. So I managed to find the next item on the home purchase scavenger hunt list and send it in on a Thursday afternoon. Friday morning, I was told that the documents would be drawn for signing by Monday morning.
Reader, you think that is the end of the saga, but, alas, the saga continued.
On Monday, our loan officer called to see if the docs were ready for signing on Tuesday. There was no reply until Tuesday, when we were informed that our rate lock had expired and our rate would be a half point higher than we had been promised. My fiancée and I could afford the rate increase, but we’d be damned if we were going to pay 40 dollars a month to the lender because they dragged the process out so long the rate went up.
There were several calls over the next 24 hours. I gathered a list of agencies to file complaints with. I asked the lender to explain how this differed from a bait and switch where they promise a low rate, see rates go up, then delay long enough to unlock the rate. I never directly threatened to file complaints or accused them of bait and switch. Finally, we got the rate we were promised back.
We signed docs that weekend. For the next week, everything seemed to take a day longer than it was supposed to, which was a problem because the new rate lock expired that Friday. Wednesday, we we informed that the docs we signed had a problem; they referred to us as “unmarried” instead of “single.” They sent over a revised version, which we faxed the next day. The problem is that the lender lost the fax. It was the fucking day before our rate expires (again), the paperwork needed to be in before Friday afternoon for everything to record, and they lost the fucking fax. After we called them and were told “It’s here in my hands,” they lost it.
Friday, we refaxed the document. And we waited. We called to confirm that everything would record. Our loan officer called to confirm everything would record. 5PM came and went. Still no word. Finally, on Monday, we received confirmation that, oh, yeah, everything did record. Thanks for letting us know.
So nearly a month after the original closing date, my fiancée and I have a house.
Lending is a strange fucked up microcosm of the economy. If I were as unresponsive to my clients as the lender and underwriter were, I’d never get their business again. If I don’t start a project in time to complete it on time, I won’t get any more projects from that client. If I contacted my clients every week with a new information request for the same project every week, I’d never get their business again. If my client had to resend the same form no fewer than three times, I’d never get their business.
You'll have to live with my spelling and editing mistakes. TLDPR.