Consumer complaint received 2020-03-11
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Closing on a mortgage — 
Company: LD Holdings Group, LLC (NJ)

I'm getting a mortgage from Loan Depot for my first time home purchase. The closing date on the purchase contract is XX/XX/2020. The pre-approval ( attachment 1 ) of loan of {$640000.00} ( # XXXX ) and the first loan estimate ( attachment 2 ) was made on XX/XX/2020. When issuing the loan estimate, the lending officer told me that I need to make a full payment of remaining balance for my financed car and also need to return a leased car to meet DTI requirement. Thus, I made a full payment for the financed car and returned the leased car and submitted evidence documents. As the underwriter 's review was going, the lending officer reached out to me and told me that the underwriter noted we had DTI issue as he couldn't take a part of my paycheck as income source. That was a {$400.00} dollar of monthly conveyance. To remediate the DTI issue the lender told me that the loan amount should be lowered by {$13000.00}. I agreed and made a loan estimate modification. The modified loan estimate ( attachment 3 ) was issued on XX/XX/2020 with lowered loan amount of {$630000.00}. On XX/XX/2020 the loan amount further lowered down to {$610000.00} due to the purchase price decrease from {$720000.00} to {$680000.00}. I asked and the seller agreed to provide a discount of the purchase price. So the purchase price became lower and the loan amount became {$610000.00} to reflect the price change. Therefore, the 2nd modification of loan estimate ( attachment 4 ) was issued on XX/XX/2020. Loan Commitment ( Attachment 5 ) was issued on XX/XX/2020. Since the time I had the first modified loan estimate on XX/XX/2020 and until XX/XX/2020 the lender never mentioned DTI might be a problem. However, on XX/XX/2020 the lending officer called me and said that the underwriter noted that the property tax should be increased and, as a result, DTI has an issue and I need to pay either an additional loan closing costs of {$7000.00} or an additional down payment of {$85000.00} to resolve the DTI issue. As the closing date is approaching just in a couple of days, I had no option besides paying the additional {$7000.00} of closing fees to finalize the mortgage and complete my first time home purchasing. I couldn't sleep at all last night due to the lender 's unfair and deceptive lending practice. Over the last 2 month I spent so much time and energy to respond to their requests and submitted tons of documents. I've talked to my land lord, as I'm renting right now, that I will evacuate the current place. Also I arranged a moving company for the moving to the new place. I sent a complaint via email to the lending officer, loan processor, and account managers and cc 'd customer care department of the company on the email. The account manager made a call to me saying he will resolve the issue and will send me updated loan estimate. I reviewed the updated loan estimate ( attachment 6 ) and noted that they were still trying to deceive me. To make the total loan closing fees look similar to the previous loan estimate ( Attachment 4 ), they made all the necessary 3rd party  expenses and prepaid expenses much lower than previous numbers and sneakily charging additional closing costs of {$6300.00}. This is apparently unfair and deceptive lending practice. They have all my financial information and know that I can't make additional down payment of {$85000.00} but I have money enough to pay the additional fees. The accounting manager told me today that the property tax is something they  can't control. But there was no property tax change. They should have used an adequate number of the tax from the beginning. They can't put any numbers in their estimate and change it at the last moment and request a huge amount of closing fees. 

Please take necessary actions to stop the lender 's wrong doing not only for me and my family but also for future potential victims. Individual consumers can't stop this kind of unfair and deceptive lending practice. This unfair and deceptive lending practice and the lender should be removed from the industry to protect consumers and to maintain our financial system safe and sound.