Consumer complaint received 2021-12-03
Company: CITIBANK, N.A.
State: NY
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
My XXXX XXXX  application was submitted at the end of XX/XX/2021. The Underwriter and the Loan officer worked very slowly to process the loan. They requested the same documents multiple times and spent XXXX months to give a decision ; Loan denied in XXXX XXXX XXXX The reason for denial was " because I was not working at the time. '' I had current paychecks throughout the XXXX  month long ordeal up until the very end when work is generally slow for me because of the winter weather. 

A little background on my work situation the Bank KNEW about when I began my application. I am a XXXX  and I generally complete most of my work in Spring, Summer and Fall seasons, the Winter season is generally slow and I do not work as much. Regardless, my income this year is more or less what my average annual income has been in the previous years. 

In a nutshell - The Loan Officer/Underwriter denied my loan on the basis that I am not " currently working '' where they already had prior knowledge about my work situation AND the fact that I have already earned my average annual income this year. 

The bank also knows that I NEVER filed for loan grievances during covid or missed any payments whatsoever. Needless to say I have a very good track record of making my payments on time, consistently. And I have done that working as a bricklayer my whole working career ; there is no change in my work situation, it is not out of the ordinary for me to not work in the winter. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that fact. 

From my research I have found that the average refinance loan process can take as little as XXXX  days or over XXXX XXXXays. The average refinance loan process takes XXXX days. My loan process took XXXX days. Why is that? 

I submitted all the documents asked of me within a day or XXXX of the requests. In addition to that I was asked for multiple documents more than once ; which is reasonable if the nature of the documents is dynamic; such as paychecks. But the underwritee/loan officer ALSO asked me for the same exact documents multiple times. These requests needlessly extended loan processing time ; this should not have been the case because the bank already had possession of these requested documents ; rather than look for them in their files they asked me to resubmit. 

The delay in processing the loan also prevented me from applying for credit because how it would reflect the loan application. For this reason I could not reach out to other banks to apply for refinance elsewhere. 

XXXX XXXX rates have climbed since my application with Citibank was submitted and now I do not have any recourse to apply elsewhere because the rates are not favorable to me. 

This process has been largely unfair to me and it downright seems that the process was not completed in good faith.

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