Consumer complaint received 2022-08-04
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage — 
Company: Lennar Financial Services, LLC (MN)

We signed a purchase agreement to build a new home from Lennar in XXXX, Minnesota. Part of the purchase agreement contained a contingency that we obtain pre-approval for the financing within a few weeks, which we did. Incentives were offered for going with Lennar 's mortgage company, Lennar Mortgage ( XXXX # XXXX ). We submitted our application and obtained pre-approval from them. 

We have a unique financing situation for our existing home where the funds are being borrowed from a family member. Upon signing the purchase agreement, we requested that our payments to the family member for the existing home loan be deferred so we could rebuild our savings from the earnest money we put down, have money for repairs and upgrades to our existing home, and save up for the closing costs of the new home. I disclosed this arrangement with Lennar via several emails, dating back to XXXX of XXXX. I also disclosed this arrangement in subsequent emails, so the company was well aware of our financing arrangement via a private party as well as our deferment agreement, from the beginning really. 

We were scheduled to closing on our new home on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX, we received a call from our loan officer at Lennar stating that the company would not be able to provide us financing as the deferment agreement with our private party didn't qualify us for secondary market financing. We presented multiple solutions to the company including a written deferment agreement, letters of explanation from the lender, paying the payments we deferred, and a note stating that we are current on the loan. We also have a settlement statement detailing the loan payoff for the sale of our existing home which is scheduled for XX/XX/XXXX along with a signed and notarized mortgage satisfaction, one day prior to the closing of our new home. None of these solutions were deemed acceptable to Lennar Mortgage, and on the XXXX of XXXX the officially turned us down, eight calendar days prior to our scheduled closing. 

Due to the pre-approval and lack of any indication that this was an issue, we did not pursue any secondary options for financing. We had no indication that we were going to be denied, let along one week before. It has caused a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety, we were thinking that we would be XXXX in a week. Thankfully we were able to get in contact with an ethical local credit union who is helping us and we aren't going to lose the house. However it was a very real possibility that we would lose the house if we hadn't been fortunate enough to work with this new company. 

Lennar was aware of this issue since the beginning of the process and only waiting until the very end to change their decision. We had pre-approval which was updated numerous times as the construction was delayed and the process was extended almost out to a full year. Our traditional credit metrics were outstanding - we have very good credit scores, very strong income, a 27 % down payment for the new home. If they were aware that our financing arrangement wouldn't allow us to qualify for secondary financing they should have alerted us well in advance of ONE WEEK prior to our closing, leaving us scrambling, adjusting our moving schedules, movers, time off with our jobs, having to re-adjust all of our utilities, negotiate with the buyer of our existing home to extend our stay, and overall causing a tremendous amount of anxiety and duress. I didn't sleep for two days due to the anxiety. 

Lennar offered no solutions, nothing. They were completely inflexible with the solutions we provided too, which I believe were overly accommodating. We had invested a tremendous amount of time and energy into this process, uploading a ton of documents, going back and forth with the processor and loan officer, really XXXX over backwards and providing as much documentation and explanation as possible. All for nothing and with essentially no notice whatsoever. 

The loan officer and processor were super helpful at Lennar however, and were consistently going to bat for us. They tried to work out a solution and tried to push our solutions to their upper management. We were really appreciative for their help, unfortunately the higher ups were inflexible and wouldn't entertain any other options.