Consumer complaint received 2016-06-02
Company: Shellpoint Partners, LLC
State: OH
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Credit decision / Underwriting

Complaint:
My name is XXXX XXXX, a single mother of XXXX boys. And I feel I have been unfairly treated when trying to purchase a home in XXXX OH. 
Being a single mom, I am on a limited budget & must stay in Delaware due to my children 's schools. After much searching for a home, I finally found the home of my dreams at XXXX XXXX XXXX, XXXX which was listed on XXXX/XXXX/16. I was super excited. I loved the neighborhood and had searched there for quite a while. I knew from the neighborhood alone, I wanted the home and the quality of the house just had me so excited. Having been beat out on other homes, I made the offer immediately. However, the seller would not accept my offer for I had not previewed the property yet so I took off work the next day to see the home and reconfirm my offer. 
The seller 's agent, XXXX XXXX from HER Realtors, responded to my offer by telling my realtor that I was required to provide my personal information to her lender, New Penn Financial, the in-house lender of HER Realtors, so he could tell the seller which offer was the most promising. I had already been pre-approved and underwritten by the lender I chose to use which offered the programs I wanted. The seller 's agent then had her in-house lender, New Penn Financial, contact me through my realtor. From the email forwarded to me, the listing agent stated " New Penn Financial is our brokers select lender and they are endorsing and promoting the cross qualification. As a fellow HER realtor, I would hope you know our broker and affiliated lender would never engage in conduct violating RESPA. We are only looking for a XXXX opinion -- NOT requiring the use of another lender. '' ( It sure did n't feel like that when they demanded I do this to even have my offer considered XXXX. My realtor was very shocked for the Loan officer from New Penn Financial first offered her a {$100.00} XXXX gift card via email to move me to him away from my current lender. Later, he sent another email to my realtor stating that the gift offer was for me and not the realtor. I thought this was not legal for the lender of the seller 's choice to review my loan application and provide this information to the seller 's agent and the seller to make a loan decision so I did not comply. I did increase my offer by removing all concessions and offered over asking price and had my lender write a pre-approval letter stating I was qualified and showing that I had been previously underwritten. 
After a few days, they sellers agent responded stating, " the seller was presented with the facts on both contracts and, unfortunately, they have decided to work with the other offer ... Ultimately, the seller chose the other offer because the buyer was conventional with a significant down payment ( lower risk ) and a quicker close date. '' How would the seller be privy to my down payment and financial information? How would they be able to know the other offers financial situation? Is n't that illegal to share our personal information with the seller of the property? If they knew our personal information, could n't they have countered our offer after knowing our affordability? Can this be legal for this lender to share anyone 's personal information with the seller of a property? 
I work as an XXXX for a bank. I know that a person 's financial information is very private and not to be shared with others. How did this lender and realtor get approval to do this? How could they require this of me to even consider my offer? 
I wanted to share with you for I feel I was discriminated against for being a single mom. I feel my privacy rights were overlooked. I feel my Respa rights ( from researching my rights ) have been infringed. I hope you will stop this from happening to me again by this realtor and her lender who have a lot of the listings in XXXX Ohio. I lost my dream home!

Company public response: Company disputes the facts presented in the complaint
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation