Consumer complaint received 2015-05-27
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO.
State: TX
Product: Mortgage
Sub-product: Home equity loan or line of credit
Issue: Application, originator, mortgage broker

Complaint:
In XXXX my ex-fiance and I were purchasing a new home where Chase was the preferred lender that worked with the building 's sales team. During the underwriting process the onsite Chase representative asked us to provide a fraudulent lease contract for a home that I owned which we planned to lease upon moving. He said we could just get a friend to sign a lease so that underwriting would n't have to worry about that on my credit. We told him that we both have security clearances and would feel comfortable doing so, then asked to speak to the regional VP for chase to resolve the matter. The following week we met with the regional XXXX for Chase and the developer for XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX. During the meeting both the VP for Chase and developer agreed that what our Chase representative suggested was inappropriate and the VP of Chase offered to personally ensure the loan would move forward without any further troubles. He said we may have a higher rate, but could always refinance once I 'd sold or rented the property in question. 

Roughly a year and a half later we called Chase to explore refinancing our loan. Chase told us that they could n't refinance at the time, but to follow-up again in 6 months. We called other lenders who told us that because of the type of loan that Chase had put us in, we would not be able to refinance with them. We were told that the XXXX loans that we currently had limited our options and that most likely only Chase would work with us because the loans were " unconventional ''. 

6 months later my ex-fiance and I parted ways and called Chase back to see if XXXX or the other of us could refinance the loan and update the title at the same time. We went back and forth with Chase for 3-4 months and could never get a straight answer on how to refinance our loan and update the title. About this time we began to see the housing market really taking it 's toll on our building and decided to put the home on the market to see if we could sell it and just move on separately. Our house was listed with several agents over the course of 6 months or so and never received an offer, after several price decreases. The price was now well below what we had paid and we were beginning to worry about the financial burden, given Chases lack of response to refinance. 

In XXXX my company transferred me to XXXX and my ex-fiance had already left the XXXX area. We were forced to rent out the home at a loss and assumed we could try and refinance after financial markets settled down. I moved back to the XXXX area in late XXXX and moved back into the home to minimize our losses. My current wife was XXXX with our son in XXXX which forced us to look for a home with more than XXXX bedroom in XXXX. Again, we called Chase and asked about mortgage modifications, refinancing assistance programs, you name it ... but the answer was that we could not take advantage of any of these programs because of the loan that Chase had put us in. In XXXX my wife was laid off and my ex-fiance could no longer sustain the financial burden from this home. My ex-fiance called Chase to explore options and was told that since we were n't late on our payments that it was unlikely we would ever receive assistance. She consulted a short sale expert who said that Chase was known for this, so we stopped making payments to explore the short sale option. Chase finally started responding and we completed a short sale. Now, Chase has placed the late payments on both our credit reports after having initiated this whole problem in XXXX with their request to provide fraudulent paperwork, then exacerbated the problem by giving us advice without explaining the actions they would be taking to damage our credit. I would like to pursue an amicable solution to remove this from my credit or will be contracting with an attorney to explore legal action.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation