our transaction has been thoroughly wrecked by our RPM Mortgage broker, Sean Marek, in the 11th hour of our contract, and we are now on the hook for our deposit money because he told us we were good to go on releasing loan and appraisal contingencies. We now must file for an extension of contract (on a short sale with NOD coming any minute) and hope that we can pull it off with a different lender. If we lose our 3% deposit over this, there will be a lawsuit forthcoming.
1) The rate we ended up being given was 0.125 higher than the going rate being offered by most competitors. He promised ""we'll keep watching the rates and lock when they are low"" but that rate never budged... he just pushed one through at this higher-than-average rate.
2) We were quoted all sorts of extra fees not required by competitors -- processing fee (not charged by others), $525 appraisal (other servicers charging $100-$200 less for appraisal), underwriting fee $125 higher than competitors, etc.
3) More than once he lost our important documents we had given him copies of. We handed him driver's license, social security cards, W-2s, and pay stubs... We watched him photocopy them right in front of us... only to have him turn around a couple weeks later and request those items again (not updated versions - the same exact thing) and when we told him we had already given them to him, he had no recollection of it. This did not instill confidence, and I'm still a little uneasy about it. I'd like to think those ended up in a paper shredder somewhere, but for all I know he could have left them sitting on a table at Starbucks. I have no idea. What I do know is that they should have gone straight into our file and stayed there, and that's clearly not what happened.
4) He never told us the credit scores he pulled for us, nor gave us a copy of the reports (our new lender will do this -- and yet not charge a processing fee. Hmmm)
5) He got my tax returns over three months ago... yet just now, a week before close of escrow, suddenly there are questions and concerns called out about some business write-offs I had on my return...
6) He wasn't able to stick to his deadlines and meet the dates he told us we would get information by. When our loan and appraisal contingency date was looming, we told him we needed to know by then or we'd have to extend it. He wrote and signed a document stating that we were approved for a loan for the purchase of the specified property, and told both us and our agent that we should go ahead and lift the contingencies.
We started asking ""Where are the loan docs?"" and he replied that the underwriters now wanted additional reports above and beyond the appraisal, and repairs on things that had not previously been called out as being necessary. This, alone, was ridiculous to think that we could somehow do these repairs all of the sudden (for the sellers, no less... and with no guarantee that we would still get the loan if we did them) in less than a week before closing. But we said we wanted to know what this list of repairs was. Originally we were told the only things that should be fixed were whatever was pointed out in the appraisal. Suddenly the list started growing longer, and when we asked him for it (3 business days before close of escrow now), he said he would get it to us. Then, once again, a day later he backpedaled and said they needed another inspection report before they could give us any indication of what repairs they wanted.
That's the point at which I realized the unprofessionalism and/or lies were never going to end. We are ready and willing to do repairs, but we have little to no trust or faith in Sean Marek or RPM Mortgage at this point.
(and this was not some risky low-downpayment or FHA mortgage. This was for a 15 year fixed loan with us putting down more than 20%, and we have a credit rating of about 800 )
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