Since my first post was so all over the place, I figured I'd post my letter back to her, so that it's easier to understand. It's long, but hey, I'm long winded, take it or leave it LOL! Obviously I'll change names and such to get rid of identifying information (except for Brian Lindow, the idiot who screwed us). I'm not at all claiming we were completely innocent in our credit problems, but we've been working so hard and they should have been up front in the beginning. . So after A LOT of crying on Friday, here it is:
Hello XXX,
Our loan number was #12345. My husband and I were on the loan, RJ Lily's Husband and RJ Lily.
Along with this information you requested, I would like to explain what we experienced on our end. This will be a long explanation, but please take the time to read through all the information. It is fine for you to look into what the underwriters say, however, you will not be able to see the lack of communication we were given. I will not document each and every communication we have had, but will highlight the lack of information we were given. I do, however, have a timeline of every email and call that we exchanged. Also, I do not have the calls exchanged between my realtor and our loan specialist, but she has informed me that she called him many times with no response.
First I would like to explain our credit.
Currently our middle score is XXX. I was told by Brian Lindow, our loan specialist, that the minimum score needed to qualify was XXX. Since being denied other lenders have told me that XXX is the minimum, which would have been useful information for us. Honestly I'm not sure why our score is so low. In the past we have had quite a few late payments, however for the last 2-3 years we have been working very hard to repair our credit. I was under the impression that 6 months to a year was what was mostly needed to create a positive turn in your credit. Therefore I was paying great attention to the last 2 years of our history. In those 2 years we have had 2 late payments. One was 30 days late to our mortgage in July 2010, almost 2 years ago. The 2nd was also 30 days late to our mortgage in November of 2011. While I completely understand that allowing something like that during the mortgage process does not reflect well, we are human and overlooked transferring a payment from one bank to the other, during the holidays while also trying to buy a house. It was actually transferred prior to the 30 days, but it takes approximately 4 days for our mortgage company to receive it, which put it at 33 days late. While 2 late payments to our mortgage is not a positive thing, as I said, we are human and over the course of 8 years (on a bi-weekly mortgage payment, therefore approximately 200 on time payments) I do not believe two 30 day late payments shows that we are a credit risk.
The only other current negative indicator on our credit is that we have credit cards that have a balance higher than 50% of their limit. While, again I understand that this is negative, this was something that the underwriters and Brian were aware of at the very beginning and we should have been informed it would be a problem then, before getting so far into the process.
I fully believe we should have been given this loan. Having only 2 late payments and high credit card balances should not completely negate our positive credit.
Next I would like to give you a timeline of what occurred.
In September 2011 we were pre-approved for over $300,000. Obviously our credit was pulled at this time and my husband's score was XXX (I mention this, because I want to illustrate times that I believe our credit should NOT have been pulled, due to the negative impact lenders pulling scores have on credit scores). Being responsible homeowners, we knew that was not possible for us. We knew we would not go above $140,000, WELL below the amount of the pre-approval, which is what we ultimately asked for. When we finally proceeded with the loan process it was the end of November. According to many people I know in real estate denying someone a loan after pre-approving them for it is VERY rare, as is pulling credit many times. We were scheduled to close on January 31, therefore our credit needed to be pulled again, to satisfy the 120 days before closing requirement. The report was pulled on December 5, 2011. Apparently my husband's score had then lowered to XXX. We were not informed of this until January 5, 2012, one full month later, when I approached Brian with concerns over the time it was taking. As of December 12th Brian was confidently telling our real estate agent, Jane Doe, as well as ourselves, that we qualified and that it would be no problem. Jane was very concerned, because she has had a similar negative experience with Quicken with another client and expressed that concern to Brian. He told her that it would not happen and that a confirmation would be received by her by December 12th.
On December 6th Brian received the contract from our realtor and we began the process of getting documents submitted. That was final on December 14th. Eight days later Brian questioned why I was not on the mortgage. It was simply that I am a stay at home mom with no income and am not on our current mortgage. This should have been questioned sooner than 8 days. Six days after that Brian told me the underwriters needed me on the loan. Again, we should have been notified much sooner. At this point Brian added me to the mortgage (December 27th) and was supposed to contact me on December 28th. I finally had to contact him on December 30th, which of course, was leading up to the New Year's holiday and therefore we could not find out any information until after the holiday on January 3rd. When Brian added me to the mortgage on December 27th he pulled not only my credit, but my husband's as well, which is now the 3rd time. There is no reason his credit should have been pulled again, which of course negatively effects his score.
On January 4th, nine days after pulling our reports Brian informed us we had a credit card that had exceeded the maximum. Of course this was due to the holiday season. Again, we should have been notified sooner. I immediately paid the credit card down to $200 below it's limit. At this time I expressed my concerns over the time it was taking and he informed me “it was tight”. Not understanding what had changed I pulled our reports and found errors on an auto loan we have. I told Brian that they were errors and I would have them fixed. He then told me that those were concerns with the underwriters. Again, 9 days after they saw the report was the first time I was hearing about it. He also informed me that my husband's score had dropped to below XXX. Again, the first time I was hearing about it 9 days later.
I rushed around getting a letter from our auto loan company stating that the late payments were indeed a mistake and submitted it to Brian just an hour and a half after he told me that is what I needed to do. The underwriters needed more information and the final letter was submitted on Friday January, 6th. On Monday, January 9th our credit was pulled again. Apparently this was to ensure our scores were up again. I do not understand this. Why did I bother to get the proof letter from the bank? It was very possible that it would not have shown up that soon as corrected anyway, so all that was accomplished was again lowering our score.
At this point when our report was pulled a new late payment, the one to our mortgage, showed up. This never would have been an issue had everything not been dragged out so long. Brian had me write a letter to the underwriters explaining why it was late (as I previously stated, it was a simple, HUMAN error during a busy time). The letter made no difference and on January 14th, one full month after we submitted our paperwork we were denied. After receiving his denial I contacted another lender and found out that there was a problem with our report saying that we had initiated an active dispute, which we had not. Brian had never mentioned this problem to us at all.
This process was ridiculous and completely unprofessional. This has effected many lives. Because of the assurance that there would not be a problem the sellers of the home purchase a new home. This could financially devastate them. Quicken could have saved them months of time waiting for us and found another buyer or waited on purchasing a house. We spent $1,200 of money that we cannot get back during this process. We are obviously not rich people and $1,200 is a lot of money to us. This would be a mortgage payment on the new house. We also have someone lined up to rent our current house and will now possibly have to inform them they need to find somewhere else to live. Due to the length of time this took, the constant pulling of our report, and failing to inform us of problems will likely cause us to not immediately be financed by someone else and therefore lose the house we love. My family, especially myself and my 7 year old son, are devastated by this.
Something needs to be done about this complete lack of professionalism and in a timely manner, unlike the rest of our experience has been. Ideally the ridiculous constraints the underwriters were holding us under need to be loosened and we should be approved for the loan. At the bare minimum I would like our $400 we paid to Quicken back and 2 of the inquiries removed from our reports. My realtor has already stated to Brian that her office will no longer work with Quicken and told him to forward that information onto his supervisors. I will also be informing family and friends of our issues and, unless this is resolved, will be reporting to the Better Business Bureau and the Attorney General and will likely post on online forums and Facebook. No one should have to go through the anguish we have gone through. To Quicken we are just numbers, but we are real people and this is effecting our lives.
Thank you for looking into the matter.
RJ Lily
Edited Friday, January 20: I received a response on Tuesday :
Good Evening RJ Lily,
Thank you for writing and letting us know about your experience. I am very sorry this has turned into a very unpleasant experience for you and your family. I have forwarded your email to your Senior Research for further review. Someone will be reaching out you no later than 9pm eastern time on Thursday to follow up. In the meantime if you have any further questions or concerns in the meantime please do not hesitate to give any member of our Client Relations Team a call at 800-863-4332 option 3.
Sincerely,
Lauren Carden
Client Relations Team
To speak with the next available Mortgage Banker, please call 800-251-9080.
Learn more about Quicken Loans at: https://www.quickenloans.com/about/why-quicken-loans
It's now Friday and I've heard nothing. So much for them getting back to me. I am so sick of banks not getting back to us when they say they will. I've had 3 other banks also tell me they would call me by a specific day and it ends up being a week or more later (or never).
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