Consumer complaint received 2019-08-26
Company: NATIONS LENDING CORPORATION
State: FL
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: FHA mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage

Complaint:
Towards the end of XX/XX/2019 I began emailing with a mortgage specialist from Nations Lending after looking through a few listings on XXXX. I have a lot of student loan debt and began asking questions of the lender about getting pre qualified with high student loan debt. I have the email trail where he and I corresponded back and forth for days. I am on an IDR ( income driven repayment ) plan with the student loan lender. I am on a secondary plan through the Dept of Education called PSLF, Public Service Loan Forgiveness, since I am a XXXX  XXXX. That plan states that after 10 years my student loan debt is forgiven. I have to recertify every year for that program to ensure I am still employed. I explained all of this to the lender and asked specifically if I am on a payment plan on the student loans, can I qualify for a mortgage? I also explained that I make small monthly payments to the student loan lender. I did my own research and saw where under FHA guidelines, typically the lender will go by the monthly payment amount being made and not the standard 1 % of the total debt as outlined according to FHA guidelines. My monthly payment on the student loans is less than {$70.00} per month. The mortgage lender told me if I had that actual payment amount documented than that is what they go by. 
On XX/XX/2019 I was issued a pre qualification letter and was given the green light by the loan specialist to find a home to purchase. I found a home that the seller had stated in the listing that buyer needed to have own financing as seller would not finance. I contacted the seller and made a date to view the home. We set the date for Saturday XX/XX/2019. 
Upon arrival I was asked if I had financing and was pre qualified with a lender. I assured her I was. This was one of many homes I had viewed and after spending over an hour there I was certain this was the home I wanted to purchase. We agreed on a price which was below their asking price and I told her upon leaving I would be in touch after speaking with my lender. 
The following Monday I spoke with the lender and was instructed to get a signed contract with the seller. We also had a realtor step in at this point to help negotiate the seller cover closing costs. We met again at the seller 's home on Saturday XX/XX/XXXX and signed a contract. The realtor confirmed with the lender that I was pre qualified and pre approved. At this time the lender instructed me to hire a home inspector and we would also need to have an appraisal. The realtor then asked the lender if he had passed it through underwriting since typically an appraiser is called AFTER the underwriting has approved three loan. The lender assured the realtor that underwriting had in fact pre screened the loan. The property is on one acre of land in XXXX, FL with a 3 bedroom, two bath mobile home as the dwelling. I hired a home appraiser and paid {$530.00} for the 4 point inspection. The lender asked for my credit card number to order the appraisal. My credit card was charged {$550.00} from a company called XXXX XXXX. 
When I asked the lender why {$550.00} was billed to my credit card when he had told me it was going to cost about {$400.00}, he said he made a mistake and would get a refund to my card. He stated he had accidentally put mine through with several others at the same time accidentally including mine. 
The title company began emailing me documents to e-sign and we were elated. We had a close date of XX/XX/2019. Everything was set in motion and many involved spent time as well as money believing this sale was taking place. The seller was going to be relocating out of state to Tennessee and began making their plans to move forward. 
On Thursday XX/XX/XXXX the mortgage specialist I had been dealing with texted me asking me to call him stating it was important. Upon reaching him by phone, he told me underwriting denied my loan. When I asked how and why he replied because of the student loans. I was completely speechless. I wanted an answer how this happened when he gave us the green light and for 6 weeks allowed everyone involved to move forward making plans, placing deposits and investing time. He stated the underwriter denied the loan because she used the 1 % of the total student loan balance which drove my debt to income ratio through the roof. I explained this was why I asked all the questions up front that I did about the student loans and he assured all of us that I was approved and that underwriting would have to use my actual payment ( as documented on my credit report ) instead of 1 % of the total balance. He now explained that the underwriter overrode the actual payment amount I make monthly and chose to go by the 1 % instead. 
I contacted the agent and the seller and had to explain what happened. I got in touch with the branch manager at Nation 's Lending in Ohio and sent him an email as well explaining everything that had taken place. I have since been in touch with their compliance VP who claims he is still looking into the matter. The branch manager assured me a check was being sent to me in the amount of {$530.00} to reimburse the cost of what I paid the home inspector. I am still waiting on the refund to my credit card for {$550.00} for the appraiser. 
This has dragged out for weeks, the seller is upset because they lost other potential buyers by taking their house off the market because I was guaranteed approved via the lender. I lost time from work to stay home and make calls back and forth to Nation 's Lending to inquire about another type of loan, all to no avail.

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