Consumer complaint received 2019-05-10
Company: Homespire Mortgage Corp
State: NC
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Other type of mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage

Complaint:
On XX/XX/XXXX, myself and my husband XXXX XXXX were given a prequalification letter from Homespire Mortgage specifically for a USDA Loan. At this time, Homespire Mortgage was made fully aware that I did not have 12 months of steady employment history. I had worked for XXXX from XX/XX/XXXX until XX/XX/XXXX, then I resided for 4 months for my husband to be in XXXX   XXXX, and then I was rehired on XX/XX/XXXX and am still currently employed. In XXXX, that would have been 8 months of steady employment history for myself. Knowing this fact, my family was still given a prequalification letter and the green light to move forward with the home buying process for a USDA loan. We then spent over 2 months paying for due diligence and earnest money, inspections, etc. to a total of almost {$3000.00}. We also spent more than normal time gathering documents, sending emails/faxes, etc as soon as Homespire Mortgage requested it. Homespire Mortgage took their time and most definitely pushed this loan out as long as they possibly could ( and now I see why ). At one point, XXXX XXXX ( loan officer assistant with 10 years of USDA underwriting experience ) refused to respond to my emails, text messages, and phone calls as a consumer who had questions about the loan. At that point, I had to get my real estate agent XXXX XXXX involved in order to ask questions. I had to ask my agent, who then had to ask XXXX, then my agent would bring the answer back to me, since she refused to speak to me regarding my loan. On Friday, XX/XX/XXXX, it was assumed that we did not get approved for the USDA loan. At this point, Homespire Mortgage 's underwriting had approved it, and it was also approved by XXXX. Apparently when it landed in front of USDA, USDA reminded Homespire Mortgage that they have a " 12 month employment history '' guideline and always have. Therefore, on that one basis, they denied our entire loan. If this was the guideline, then back in XXXX when we started this process, we would have never met the qualifications. At this point, I begged XXXX XXXX ( our loan officer ) to start on a plan B. Our contract had to be extended, which XXXX agreed to do. Our new closing date had to be by XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX informed me of the XXXX program that same Friday, and tried to push a conventional loan through knowing we did not want or have the money to provide any sort of down payment ( this is why we wanted USDA-100 %  financing ). As the days went by, we had no answer as to if these loans would go through or not. As I continued to text, email, call and so did my real estate agent, XXXX began ignoring and refusing to answer us. Finally on Tuesday XXXX, XX/XX/XXXX I informed XXXX if he did not give us an answer or an update that we were done with this process. We had already lost thousands of dollars, our home we were renting had been packed in boxes for weeks with no access to normal everyday items, we have had to give our notice and break our rental lease, lost this home we thought we were moving to, etc. On Wednesday, XX/XX/XXXX XXXX sent myself and my husband a text message saying that the down payment would be too high and it wouldn't be approved anyway. He then offered to run our credit yet again ( ARE YOU SERIOUS ), for what reason, I don't know. He again mentioned USDA would be our best bet, and good luck, to try again once my employment reached 12 months. That's where it ended. No empathy, no I'm sorry, nothing. I requested for my money to be refunded at the very least, and informed them I would be contacting an attorney. Of course, no response to that. I have contacted an attorney and have my consultation with him on Tuesday, XX/XX/XXXX. At the very minimum, we feel like we were extremely taken advantage of, we have lost all of this time, put in so much effort beyond a normal loan closing process, we were honest in truthful the entire time and had proof to show it. I am hurt and depressed that we were fooled and taken for granted, only in hopes that someone might be able to " slide this one under the rug ''. I can't believe this is allowed to happen to innocent people, when Homespire Mortgage 's job is to know the loan and it's guidelines inside and out. Someone just wanted their commission, and how they've impacted our lives forever doesn't matter.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation