Consumer complaint received 2018-04-26
Company: UBS BANK USA
State: FL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
I previously filed complaint XXXX against UBS Bank USA. The company 's response is unsatisfactory. It does not adequately address the specific transaction-related issues I cited in my original complaint. 

Below are the issues I cited, comments on the UBS response, and questions about each issue. I would like a clear response from UBS to ALL the questions. 

I presented UBS Bank with a home purchase contract which specified the type of mortgage product I was to apply for. 

Does UBS as a matter of policy review home purchase contracts submitted by mortgage applicants to ascertain which mortgage product the applicant has contracted for? Was this done in my case? 

Instead of offering the type of mortgage specified in the contract, UBS offered, promoted and processed an application for an alternative product. 

The UBS response letter states that the mortgage product I applied for, known as Mortgage Plus, was 100 % LTV. That contradicts how Mortage Plus was presented by my UBS mortgage banker and is described in UBS marketing materials : 80 % LTV combined with 20 % pledged investment account assets loan. Since my contract called for 80 % LTV, it didnt occur to me to question the legality of what UBS was offering me.

Does UBS consider the Mortgage Plus product I applied for to be the same product required by my contract? 

The alternative product was more financially advantageous to UBS than the product specified in my contract. UBS would have collected interest on 100 % of the purchase price rather than 80 %. I would not have had to withdraw the 20 % down payment from my UBS investment account, so UBS would have been able to continue collecting a management fee on that amount. 

Does UBS acknowledge or dispute that the Mortgage Plus product was more financially advantageous to UBS than the product specified in my contract? 

UBS presented the alternative product as an 80 % LTV product which is what my contract required. I'd never applied for a mortgage before and don't have a finance background. So I could not reasonably have been expected to question the legality of the alternative product UBS was offering me. Especially since I was a UBS investment management client! 

UBS didn't explain to me this alternative product wasn't the same type of mortgage as provided in my contract and may not be allowed under contract terms. 

- UBS didn't advise me to seek counsel to confirm the proposed alternative product was in compliance with the contract. 

Does UBS acknowledge or dispute that they didnt explain to me Mortgage Plus wasnt the same type of mortgage as provided in my contract and may not be allowed under the terms, and didn't advise me to seek counsel about Mortgage Plus compatibility with my contract? 

Is UBS position they had no responsibility to undertake any of these actions? 

After UBS informed me I didn't qualify for the alternative product, they attempted to qualify me for the mortgage product specified in the contract. When I didn't qualify for that either, I ask UBS for a declination letter so I could legally cancel the purchase contract and get my escrow funds returned. Before issuing the letter, however, UBS didn't change the product on my mortgage application to the one specified in the contract. So the letter was issued for the alternative product, instead of the product specified in my contract of which UBS had a copy. 

My UBS mortgage banker acknowledged to me during a phone call that the primary purpose of a declination letter is to enable the applicant to get escrow funds back. Given that, and the fact that UBS had a copy of my contract, why didnt UBS change the product on my mortgage application to the product specified in my contract before the declination letter was issued? Does UBS believe that was an appropriate ( non ) action? If so, why? 

I asked UBS to issue a corrected declination letter, or a formal communication on UBS letterhead, stating I was denied the product specified in the contract, as demanded by sellers ' attorney. UBS failed to provide either before the end of the financing period specified in the contract. 

UBS appears to be unaware why I submitted a second mortgage application. UBS refused to provide a corrected declination letter or formal UBS letterhead communication stating I was denied an 80 % LTV loan. This led the sellers to falsely conclude that I was trying to get out of the purchase deal because I didn't couldn't get a Mortgage Plus mortgage, and UBS was covering for me as a private wealth management client. I had to file a second application to finally get an 80 % LTV declination letter and prove to the sellers that wasnt true, to avoid escalated legal battle and potentially greater financial loss. 

Why didnt UBS comply with my above document request which could have the ended my legal dispute with the sellers without any financial loss? Does UBS believe that was an appropriate ( non ) action? If so, why?

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation