Consumer complaint received 2020-07-17
Company: UNITED SERVICES AUTOMOBILE ASSOCIATION
State: NC
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
To whom it may concern, My wife and I recently applied for a home loan with USAA. Our application was declined towards what we thought should have been the end of our home buying experience, but that is not the primary issue. The primary issue is the lack of communication and lack of accountability throughout the entire process. We went through the pre-qualification process first and were told we approved for much more than what we were asking. According to our prequalification, our mortgage would have been roughly $ XXXXmonth ( our current monthly rent is {$1400.00} ). 
On XX/XX/XXXX, we put in an offer on the home we intended to purchase and said offer was accepted on XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX put due diligence and earnest money checks in the mail on XX/XX/XXXX as we had signed all documentation and were now under contract. We did not have an initial issue until it was time for the appraisal of the home. We were assigned to a loan officer named XXXX who was responsive to any questions until she went on vacation. My wife, XXXX, emailed to ask clarification on something and we received an auto-reply that XXXX would be out of the office for two weeks and wed be working with XXXX XXXX in the interim. XXXX seemed to have the attitude of dont call me, Ill call you, as she rarely replied to emails and when we did get a reply there was a noticeable amount of negativity behind her words. 
When it came to the actual appraisal, USAAs appraiser held on to the report for about a week after completing his assessment of the home. This caused us to ask for an extension on our due diligence period from the sellers. We finally got through this initial step of appraisals and inspections somewhere in the first week of XXXX. By this time, XXXX was back from vacation just in time to introduce us to a mortgage processor named XXXX XXXX. 
For the month between the start of mortgage processing and what we thought was going to be closing date of XX/XX/XXXX, we heard from XXXX exactly four times. The first was asking for more tax information. The second time was the morning of Thursday, XX/XX/XXXX asking for more documentation. We replied within an hour along with the question of whether to ask the sellers for another contract extension as that day was the last workday until Monday XX/XX/XXXX, closing day. Our question went ignored until XXXX where we received a reply promising we would get a call with some additional clarification before XXXX left the office for the holiday weekend. No call was made. My wife and I spent two hours that evening trying to escalate the situation to a loan processing manager, but all had gone home for the day/ holiday weekend. Our realtor and his assistant also reached out to XXXX, XXXX, and XXXX on several occasions throughout the process both via phone and email to get clarification on our behalf. We were finally able to get a hold of XXXX, our loan originator, who connected us with XXXX XXXX, a loan process manager. 
By Friday morning, we were able to get in touch with XXXX XXXX who tried to give us some assurance that our application would be pushed through since we still had no updated as to how far to extend our contract period. XXXX stated that she had reached out to XXXX manager and requested he personally look at the file and have underwriting take another look after some information was clarified regarding our finances. The following Monday, XXXX contacted by leaving a voicemail to tell us that our application had been declined but gave no reason. 
By this time our frustration with XXXX and her lack of communication and professionalism had boiled over, so we called and asked to speak to her supervisor XXXX XXXX. We explained our situation and he let us know he would take yet another look and call us back within a matter of hours. My wife, again, clarified the information regarding our financial state that seemed to be the source of confusion and application denial. Mr. XXXX understood what was being explained and shared the reason that underwriting would most likely decline it again. He then shared that our application was never approvable even from the pre-qualification stage and was surprised that we had gotten this far in the process. 
We feel beyond frustrated and wronged at the fact that we spent six weeks and thousands of dollars going through this loan process unnecessarily, since our application was never going to be accepted according to Mr. XXXX. Mr. XXXX shared that the way our income was structured should have been flagged at processing. I want to re-iterate that we were pre-approved for a loan far above what we offered and purchased on the home by both USAA and another lender even after sharing our financial situation. After speaking to other lenders on this matter, we were told that our loan should have in fact been approved by USAA because our financial status was more than acceptable. This entire situation was not only mentally and emotionally frustrating but also financially depleting. The specific transactions that are the most angering include roughly {$900.00} for an appraisal, {$1500.00} for due diligence, and {$1000.00} in earnest money. 
As we are in uncertain times with COVID, the loss of that amount money is not acceptable. We feel that it was USAAs duty, from the beginning, to share this information that we may not be approved. Furthermore, they used COVID as the reason for their lack of movement in the process at a faster rate, however all the required documents had been uploaded since XX/XX/XXXX but did not begin processing in underwriting until XX/XX/XXXX. We still believe there was enough time given that we would not have had such a large financial loss if they had notified us sooner. Mr. XXXX ended the final phone call explaining the USAA absorbs no financial responsibility in this matter despite the lack of quality communication. He simply offered his apology. 
My wife and her family have been customers of USAA for several years. We chose them because of their exemplar customer service, however I do not feel that as of late that has been our experience. We feel that we were often treated as an after thought and not given proper communication time and again. We feel that USAA should bear some responsibility for this process falling apart and should be made to repay at least a portion on what we lost in while going through this.

Company public response: Company believes it acted appropriately as authorized by contract or law
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation