Consumer complaint received 2019-04-25
Company: Caliber Home Loans, Inc.
State: IL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage

Complaint:
The reason for this complaint is three employees of Caliber Home Loans fraudulently misrepresented terms of the loan that were not disclosed on any of the paperwork or disclosures sent to us for this refinance. 

On XX/XX/2019 I was approached by my mortgage lender, Caliber Home Loans, to do a  refinance on my home. I was told by XXXX XXXX ( XXXXXXXX ) the benefit to refinance include about a {$1100.00} refund from the PMI company because we were refinancing under a certain period of time, a refund of our escrow at closing, which was approximately {$4700.00}, and we would be skipping the subsequent month 's payment. The total cash benefit to us was about {$7000.00}. In addition to this XXXX indicated we would be saving over $ XXXX/month on the total mortgage payment and eliminate PMI. XXXX said, from what she could see, the home value was at a place that refinancing made sense, despite my concerns of being approached by Caliber representatives before and others stating it was not. She said it was. With these representations I agreed to allow them to run my credit. She ran my credit while on the phone. During this same conversation, we discussed adding my husband to the deal. She ran his credit as well. We decided at the time it did not make sense, and we agreed to move forward with myself as the sole borrower, and I paid a {$99.00} appraisal fee. 

The appraisal was conducted, and came in lower than XXXX assured me it would. Then, on top of that, she claimed to have read my credit report wrong and all of a sudden saw my car loan which has been on my credit report since XX/XX/2019. XXXX unilaterally then tried to change the terms of the refinance, claiming I no longer qualified for what she presented on XX/XX/XXXX. We then agreed to put my husband back in the mix as co-borrower, and XXXX promised she would use the same credit reporting done on XX/XX/XXXX. Almost immediately after we hung up the phone, we learned XXXX ran my husband 's credit again, and that caused his score to drop significantly. Two hard inquires in a short period of time was a hit. XXXX flat out lied, and we had provided proof to Caliber home loans, and their associate XXXX XXXX ( XXXXXXXX confirmed for me Caliber did run the credit twice, proving XXXX lied. After days of attempting to have a reasonable conversation with her, of which she is incapable of doing, I was able to speak with her manager, XXXX XXXX ( XXXXXXXX ). He became my POC from that point forward. He said he would take over the file and work with underwriting to make the deal work, as XXXX initially presented to me. 

It took a couple weeks going back and forth because of the addition of my husband to the file, the lower appraisal, and the review of our credit reports, however, XXXX eventually confirmed he was able to work with underwriting and the initial presentation of what XXXX had provided to me did not change. We were still able to have the same program, same interest rate, etc. Nothing changed. We agreed to move forward. 

After more weeks of providing an unreasonable amount of paperwork and jumping through several hoops for XXXX 's document requests, we were able to schedule closing on the loan. I have reviewed every disclosure provided from XX/XX/2019 up to and including the date of closing. At no time in this paperwork did we agree to, sign with authorization, or get provided any sort of document allowing Caliber Home Loans to take our escrow fund, which was not their money to use, and apply it to the principal of the loan. 

The loan closed on XX/XX/2019. We went through every document with the closing specialist and even discussed the escrow refund with her, and no document did not indicate this was happening. 

I followed up with XXXX XXXX on XX/XX/2019 to clarify a few follow-up details - when would the escrow refund be processed, when would my loan be visible on line, and when would the refund from the PMI company be processed. 

It was during this email conversation that XXXX XXXX disclosed Caliber Home Loans used the escrow balance of approximately {$4700.00} to put money toward the principal of the loan. 

Caliber Home loans never disclosed this, nor did they have permission from me to use the money set aside in the escrow account for taxes and property insurance to pay the principal of the loan, to serve their needs, not mine as the mortgage consumer. 

It is apparent that XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX and XXXX XXXX made misrepresentations and withheld significant details in order to close this loan. We were required to sign an Anti-mortgage Fraud Statement certifying everything we represented was true. I had to sign a statement that said the funds used in the closing were not obtained or borrowed from any source not disclosed on my application. I never agreed to allow Caliber Home Loans to use these funds as closing costs or down payment. Further we were asked, by the closing agent, to sign a " borrower 's certificate of refinance loan benefit '' certifying that one of the statements were true. Everything about this loan went up - interest rate, principal & interest payment, total debt obligation, etc. There was no benefit to the loan except for these three things ( {$1100.00} back from the PMI company, skipping XX/XX/XXXX 's payment, and the {$4700.00} refund on escrow ), which was outlined in the last bullet indicating cash back at closing on this refinance certification, and why we were doing this in the first place. We relied upon the statements we would receive money back after closing, with an eventual total of about {$7000.00} when all said and done. 

We were misled by these three people into a refinance that was fraudulently represented. Had any of this been disclosed before or at closing, we would have not moved forward as there is absolutely no benefit to us. 

We feel that Caliber Home Loans owes us the refund of the escrow balance on the account as of XX/XX/2019, which was {$4700.00}.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation