Consumer complaint received 2021-03-09
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage — 
Company: JPMORGAN CHASE & CO. (NC)

It wouldn't be fair to discuss the issue without a little background information about our family. With the COVID situation, I applied and received a permanent work from home, which allowed our family of XXXX ( yes, XXXX kids ) to pursue our dream of moving to a rural home in the southern XXXX mountains. We wished to purchase a large amount of land to explore, hike, and one day hand down to our kids. In order to pursue our dream, I applied for a mortgage loan at Chase. I choose Chase because they held my previous mortgage, we had a credit card through them which made it a bit easier to have a single account, and they offered a very good rate. The process went very smoothly at first, my Home Lending Advisor was very helpful and I told him about our dreams. Eventually, we decided on North Carolina, because my work held a presence in the state and it would be a better tax burden for them. We made the move across the country in a van with the kids which is a crazy story for another time. We found a AirBnb which allowed us to do a month-to-month rental due to the winter months and started looking at houses in person. We quickly fell in love with a house nestled in the mountains with 78.6 acres of land. We had our offer accepted on XX/XX/XXXX and the contingency period began with a closing data of XX/XX/XXXX. We were very clear about the particulars about the property and Chase didn't give any indication that there would be any issues. I was quickly approved from a financial perspective and we were conditionally approved on an inspection. Unfortunately, this is where the problems began. About 28 days after our 30 day contingency began Chase has still not scheduled an Appraisal which started the red flags. They didn't communicate anything on this front, my agent & I had to ask why the appraisal hadn't taken place as it was time to sign off on contingencies. They simply said that they hadn't found an Appraiser yet, and escalated it. I asked why we this hadn't taken place prior to the end of contingency and why the issue wasn't communicated to me prior to me reaching out. From this point on, I realized that I would need to micromanage Chase as they were putting me at risk if the appraisal had an issue since I would have to sign off on contingencies without the appraisal. Even with the appraisal escalated, they could not find an appraiser until the end of XXXX and as a result they decided that a 'walk-around ' appraisal would be sufficient. The 'walk-around ' appraisal was scheduled for and completed on XX/XX/XXXX. The valuation was luckily higher than the agreed price, and so it seemed that everything would proceed as planned. However, with less than a week until closing on XX/XX/XXXX, Chase started requesting supplemental addendums from the appraiser. These questions centered around land size and about the buildings on the property. Evidently, the main issue was centered around the size of the property which disclosed to Chase over 45 days prior to this time. According to Chase they had to file a >50 acre exception. But on XX/XX/XXXX Chase issued the final closing disclosure, so we thought their questions were satisfied and we transferred the necessary funds for closing. However on XXXX, nearly identical questions were again asked by Chase about the land size and these continued after the original closing date and eventually the loan was declined on XX/XX/XXXX, which was two days after closing. We were told by Chase that they did not loan on a Jumbo loan with >50 acres of land. We were extremely disappointed with Chase that they did not disclose this information over 50 days prior when they had the contract in hand with the acreage clearly stated and that this exception process was something they should have communicated. They should have communicated that this loan would be difficult so we could either pursue a different lender or choose to take the risk of a decline. Meanwhile, my agent and I had to do damage control with the sellers, who were also under contract, and the seller 's seller which were similarly under contract. We managed to keep the dominos standing and worked out a plan with the sellers to have them finance a portion of the property. With this new plan it put the house by itself on roughly 45 acres of property without any farm buildings and put us under the Jumbo loan limit. All of these 'limitations ' were where Chases questions were centered and we went back to Chase as we thought they could close the fastest. My agent & I communicated the plan to Chase and they thought that this was a great plan and that there shouldn't be any issues, giving us very high confidence that this would seal the deal. We updated the contract, and sent it to Chase on XX/XX/XXXX. On XX/XX/XXXX we were told that Chase would need to file a land size exception, because they don't loan on anything over 25 acres. And finally on XX/XX/XXXX, I got the call from Chase and was verbally told we were declined because the property was greater than 10 acres and that they were 'following federal guidelines '. It was extremely frustrating that Chase couldn't give me a straight answer on what the land size they could loan on and in the meantime we had to figure out what to do with our family of XXXX kids for temporary housing and temporary storage for our things. At this point, my agent suggested working with a colleague that was her 'go to ' loan agent when things were difficult. He stated that there is no such Federal guideline and that the 45 acres would not be an issue. True to his word, he was able to give me the same interest rate and other loan conditions ( 30yr fixed ) as Chase and close with a full Appraisal in 9 business days without loan issues or complications. We closed on XX/XX/XXXX, but unfortunately, we had to suffer through two tries with Chase, with about 30 days of our life in limbo. Because, I felt that Chase was not transparent or honest about their process and that I owe it to others to try to prevent this issue from occurring again, and therefore I filed an complaint with Chase. They told me that this was opened on the day that the denied me the second time, but I found out later they never did open a complaint. On XX/XX/XXXX, I reached out for a status update and only to find out that nothing had been filed. I then asked again that and issue be opened. Long story short, they even declined to give back my initial {$500.00} loan application fee, saying that there was nothing amiss with the process. I feel that filing this complaint is my only recourse and that Chase didn't make any changes to prevent something like this from again occurring within their process. I don't mind that Chase declined my loan, I am upset that in the manner and timing in which they declined it, changing limitations, and the general lack of communication, which nearly cost us our dream home. I hope you can help and in order to facilitate the process I put together a more detailed timeline below. Thank you for your time. 

XX/XX/XXXX : Pre-Qualification with Chase XX/XX/XXXX : Updated Pre-Qualification with updated state ( NC vs TN ) XX/XX/XXXX : Contract was signed by sellers. Closing date was set for XX/XX/XXXX ( later changed to XX/XX/XXXX ). Contract included a 30d contingency period ( ending on XX/XX/XXXX ) XX/XX/XXXX : Effective Contract was send to Chase for new home. Contract clearly stated acreage size and number of parcels. Contract stated XX/XX/XXXX : Mortgage Commitment letter stating conditional approval was granted. Conditional approval did not state the size of the property as an condition. It did state that it was subject to an appraisal, but the appraisal did come in above value XX/XX/XXXX : I contacted Chase about the appraisal. The appraisal had not been scheduled and my contingency period was about to end. There was no communication prior from Chase that appraisal was not scheduled. I had to risk signing off on the contingencies without appraisal. After this point I had to start micromanaging Chase because of their lack of communication XX/XX/XXXX : Second Mortgage Commitment letter again stating that stating conditional approval was granted. Conditional approval did not state the size of the property as an condition. It did state that it was subject to an appraisal, but the appraisal did come in above value ( Unclear ) : Chase decided that a 'walk-around ' appraisal would be accepted in order to meet the necessary closing date. Appraisal was scheduled for XX/XX/XXXX XX/XX/XXXX : 'Walk-Around ' Appraisal was completed. Valuation was higher than agreed price XX/XX/XXXX : Chase requested appraisal supplemental addendum from the appraiser. Chase seemed to be unhappy is was not a full appraisal. They asked clarifying questions on property size, parcel numbers, uses of building etc. This is the first that the large size of the property appears to be an issue for Chase even though it was clearly communicated as part of the contract XX/XX/XXXX : Chase issues final Closing Disclosure XX/XX/XXXX : Chase again requests a revision request to the appraisal. Questions center around comparison sales, land/parcel size. 

XX/XX/XXXX : Original Closing Date XX/XX/XXXX : Chase official declined the loan because the property was >50 acres ( known to Chase since XX/XX/XXXX ) XX/XX/XXXX : Seller and us decided to do a seller finance two parcels totaling ~33 acres. This would mean that we could revise the Chase loan to ~45 acres which would be under the 50 acre limit. We discussed this plan with Chase and were told with very high confidence that this would work, but would still need to go through the 'national exception desk ' XX/XX/XXXX : Updated Contract sent to Chase XX/XX/XXXX : Told by Chase that the XXXX XXXX XXXX would need to approve any loan > 25 acres XX/XX/XXXX : Told verbally by Chase that the loan was again denied. I was told on the phone ( XXXX was XXXX ) it was denied because it was >10 acres. I communicated my frustration and was told by Chase that the issue resolution team would reach out to me XX/XX/XXXX : Discovered that the 'issue ' was never opened and asked that an issue escalation be opened XX/XX/XXXX : After making multiple calls ( spoke with others that were not my escalation owner as it was not answered by my owner ) to Chase between XX/XX/XXXX and XX/XX/XXXX finally spoke in person with the escalation owner. To be fair, I did miss two phone calls from the escalation owner. The escalation owner said that the only thing they would potentially do is to refund the {$500.00} loan application fee. 

XX/XX/XXXX : XXXX called and told me that I was declined the {$500.00} refund because there were no 'bank errors '.