Consumer complaint received 2020-07-28
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company
State: WA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
My daughter and son-in-law have applied for a rate reduction ( also called streamlined refinancing ) on a loan they hold with Freedom Mortgage. My wife and I are co-signers on the loan. The loan is FHA insured. As part of the process, Freedom Mortgage provided us a link to review and sign documents. One of the documents is an Occupancy Agreement. This document requires that we certify that " Borrower intends to occupy the property ... as Borrower 's primary residence. '' All four of us are listed as borrowers. As co-signers, my wife and I are not intending to occupy the property, but my daughter and son-in-law currently do occupy the property and intend to continue to so. For my wife and I to sign this document would be a false statement and would also leave my daughter and son-in-law vulnerable to the lender calling the loan or adjusting the interest rate. 


I brought this problem to the attention of the Loan Advisor on Thursday XXXX XX/XX/2020. Her response back to my son-in-law was " while your in laws are not required to occupy the property, we are not able to edit the document because the is how it is generated. That being said, in order to move forward we would need the documents signed as they are ... '' In other words, if you want us to continue processing this rate reduction, lie and sign the document. My son-in-law has communicate with the Loan Advisor on at least three more  occasions trying to resolve the issue with no success. An excerpt of one of the emails states again " Unfortunately, that is the way the documents are generated and would need to be signed as they are in order to move forward. '' Another email stated " I understand the concerns. However if you look at the documents they also state they are preliminary. They are auto generated, and I can not make any changes. This is how all the packages go out when there is a non-occupant co-borrower. Unfortunately I dont have another solution. '' To my knowledge, this has all been done by email ( other than my original notification to the XXXXoan Advisor which was verbal ). The Loan Advisor has made no attempt to engage myself or my son-in-law by phone to resolve. 


Today ( XXXX XXXX ), I've made three phone calls to Freedom Mortgage to engage someone more senior in the company. The first attempt, I was on hold for 30 minutes after being referred to a supervisor with no indication of someone helping. The second call dropped five minutes after being referred to a supervisor. On the third call, I was on hold for 20 minutes before the call dropped. The agent called me back and I was on hold for over an hour waiting for a supervisor before the call dropped again. The agent sent an email for someone to call me back. 


I consider the conduct of this company to be extremely unethical basically suborning perjury. The company has refused to modify the documents to be truthful. 


The documents must all be signed within the next 30 hours for the process to continue ( even though the rate lock doesn't expire until XXXX XXXX )

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation