Consumer complaint received 2019-12-21
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: MA
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage

Complaint:
We have had a terrible experience closing our mortgage with Bank of America despite us providing all requested documents to them in a timely fashion. 

On XXXX XXXX, 2019, we received a mortgage loan commitment for a fixed-rate conventional mortgage on the property we were purchasing with a scheduled closing date of XX/XX/XXXX. The bank informed us that this would be an easy closing date to make, and that just two pieces of follow-up documentation would be requested of us -- namely, a homeowners ' insurance policy for the property, which we provided on XXXX XXXX, 2019, and documentation of our XXXX money deposit, which we provided in XXXX. We relied to our detriment on the bank 's representation that we would have no trouble meeting the XX/XX/XXXX date ; had we known that the bank would be unable to meet this date we could have easily found a different lender. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, we were provided with a preliminary closing disclosure which contained at least one error -- namely, it required us to escrow payment for our homeowners ' insurance policy despite the bank previously agreeing that we could pay that amount directly rather than out of escrow. We contacted our lending XXXX, XXXX XXXX, multiple times by phone and by email but were not able to connect with him to discuss this matter. 

On the morning of our scheduled closing, XX/XX/XXXX, the bank told us we would have all documentation by XXXX. This time was pushed back 3 times throughout the day, as we increasingly tried to get the attention of the bank. Eventually, at XXXX on the date of closing, the bank asked for more documentation, which we provided immediately. 

At this point, our closing was delayed by a day. Once again, throughout the day on XX/XX/XXXX, we continued to attempt to contact the bank. Once again, every hour the bank would promise that they could provide us with closing documentation within another hour or two, and continued to be unable to deliver. Everyone we spoke to was apologetic and told us that they didnt know any more about the source of the delay than we did. Our sellers threatened to walk away with our substantial deposit. Finally, after hours on XX/XX/XXXX, we signed our paperwork. 

We were not given a meaningful opportunity to review our paperwork before we signed. We discovered errors but were unable to correct them due to the late hour and the threat of losing our deposit. Among other things, we were forced to add our homeowners insurance premium to our escrow amount despite having already paid it out of pocket. Certain items, including the prepaid amount of property taxes, were changed between our preliminary closing disclosure and the one that was presented to us at our actual closing, and these changes were not explained to us. Our deed was unable to be filed before the close of business, which meant that we were unable to access our new house for an entire weekend. We also had to reschedule critical, long-since-scheduled meetings with a XXXX and service provider due to this delay. 

This should have been an extremely straightforward closing ; due to Bank of Americas negligence weve been ultimately denied access to the house we have bought for more than 4 days and we signed inaccurate paperwork under immense time pressure to avoid losing a substantial deposit.

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 monetary relief