Consumer complaint received 2024-11-22
Product: Mortgage — VA mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage — Changes in loan terms during or after closing
Company: Freedom Mortgage Company (TX)

On XX/XX/year>, I received my closing disclosure that had all the final numbers that were approved by other departments. The loan amount was {$300000.00} and the total monthly payment was {$2100.00} and the closing costs were {$4700.00}. I agreed with these numbers and signed the disclosures and shortly after I received a call from Freedom Mortgage closing department and they were eager to set the appt for closing. During the call the lady informed me that we would be using a notary who would come to the house at XXXX XX/XX/year> to sign all the documents. After the date was set the lady from the closing department asked me to grab a pen and write down information about what figures I should expect for closing. She confirmed that the loan amount, rate, term and total monthly payment would be exactly what was on the disclosure I signed early that day ( same day XXXX ). Friday the XXXX of XXXX comes around and at XXXX the notary lady arrives and I welcome her into my home to sit and sign the documents. While she was getting to the final disclosure she made a point to remind us to review it to make sure nothing had changed since it has for her in the past. Immediately I noticed the loan amount had gone higher to {$300000.00} ( {$4500.00} difference ) and the mortgage payment had gone higher as well {$2400.00} ( {$350.00} difference ) and the closing costs was higher too! It had gone higher to {$9000.00} ( {$4300.00} difference ). Once I saw this I immediately called Freedom Mortgage and explained the difference I seen and the lady could not explain why the values had increased but she assumed it was because of a delinquent account somehow but I explained that we are at the table with the notary lady ready to close and that it would have been impossible for us to have gotten this far if we had any delinquencies associated with this account. She agreed but was unable to assist. She informed me to sign and we can figure it out later and I absolutely denied that action. I kindly asked the notary lady to leave our and we will figure out whats going on. After a few hours of hearing nothing back from Freedom Mortgage we received a call from XXXX in Closing Recovery who was very rude and deceptive. He said he called just to check in with me and congratulate our closing but I informed him we did not close and he immediately started to explain the difference in the loan amount vs what I was show and signed against what was presented at closing and he starting saying that it was because of my property tax and because we have a bill for {$4800.00} in taxes that they had to increase our escrow making my payment increase and that this was the only difference in the loan. First off, notice how he was just checking up on me but then immediately knows the issues that we are having and has all our records up on his computer, very deceiving. I explained that taxes were clearly included on the closing disclosure from the XXXX of XXXX, the last one I signed until closing. He said that it was human error on their side of things because they were calculating our taxes at less than {$1000.00} when in reality our taxes are {$4800.00}. To this I tried to plead our case, Freedom mortgage had made a mistake and it wasnt caught by the underwriting or loan officers or the escrow team and that we were presented numbers and was called and they confirmed their numbers for closing but on the day of closing everything changed and that we were not notified of any changes. XXXX admitted that they made a mistake, not only by not honoring what was presented to us by the loan department ( closing disclosure XXXX ) but also because they did not notify my by email like they should have to make sure that I was aware before closing. Instead they just sent a random lady into my house with higher numbers than what was promised/presented and expected us to just sign and not ask questions. All of this has been the worst experience in my life, I planned on closing the XXXX of XXXX and not having a payment for the months of XXXX and XXXX. Every day except for the weekends I called the freedom mortgage line and asked to speak to someone in hopes to figure out what is going to be done to get back on track and every time I was treated like absolute garbage. I was hung up on, I was yelled at, I was placed on hold while they spoke to each other to get the scoop on what the situation was, and I know this because every time I called in they asked me to verify my account and then they would immediately put me on hold and then after 5 minutes would come back on the line and say the exact same thing as XXXX, its the taxes. Every time I called in I asked to speak to a manager and every time I was told no one was available, they would take a message and have someone call me back but of course no one ever did. Im going on 3 weeks of dealing with this and still no one has called me back. To make matters worse, I received another closing disclosure after the closing fell through and it was even higher!!! How the XXXX does any of this make any sense!!! I feel deceived and no one should ever be treated the way I have been, but worse than all, no one should ever be told that their loan amount will be something and then on the day of closing have the numbers be completely different with out notice. I want something to be done about this, Freedom mortgage is a deceiving mortgage company that thinks they dont have to disclose any information until your sitting down at the closing table, I know thats not lawful. I know that they can not out right lie about what your loan amount will be, or change your taxes, or your closing costs at the last second! Someone needs to stand up to these corporate bullies, Im a XXXXXXXX XXXX  veteran that served for my country and I will not be treated like this.