Consumer complaint received 2020-08-11
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage — 
Company: AMERISAVE MORTGAGE CORPORATION (GA)

My wife and I were shopping for a mortgage refinance on XX/XX/XXXX. An online lender, Amerisave, responded to our request for a quote and assigned a loan originator, XXXX XXXX, who spoke to me over the phone and walked me through an application process online. They offered a rate of 3.3 % on a XXXX loan and took a credit card payment of {$500.00} for an " application fee. '' There was no appraisal needed as we have a LTV of under 50 % and excellent credit. I uploaded several documents and received the following email at XXXX XXXX  on XX/XX/XXXX. : " Perfect! Thanks for letting me know! It should be pulled into processing within an hour or two, and after a processor looks at it, it will move to Underwriting. It can take a day or two before it goes to Underwriting, but I will send you the Underwriters document request list as soon as I have it! '' My wife and I were feeling uncomfortable about the rushed nature of the transaction, the interest rate being higher than what we had seen in the news, the application fee and a " floating rate lock. '' We contacted a local lender in XXXX the next morning, XXXX XXXX, that told us the interest rate was far above what we should have gotten given our 800+ credit scores and high equity. They also indicated that an application deposit in a case like ours was unethical at best. They offered a loan at 2.875 % with no appraisal, no closing costs, no application fee and no upfront costs. 

We began sending multiple messages to Amerisave to cancel our application by phone and email to XXXX XXXX, her supervisor, and customer service the morning of the XXXX. ( Less than 24 hours after first contacting Amerisave. ) We finally received a reply at XXXX XXXX  saying they would cancel the application. We requested a refund of the application fee and received this email at XXXX XXXX : " Unfortunately, the {$500.00} application fee is non-refundable. The application had reached underwriting, so it was at the last verification step before final approval. I believe I did mention this when I spoke with your husband as well. '' I responded to that email asking how, between late in the evening of the XXXX and the morning of the XXXX the loan application had gone through processing and underwriting and received this response : " The times are just estimates. Sometimes file move a bit quicker and go into underwriting sooner than expected. '' and " Application, processing, origination, and underwriting fees are all very common, especially now when rates are very low. Many times these are non-refundable, and they are quite often larger than {$1000.00}. I can assure you these fees are standard procedure. '' I responded a final time. Our family attorney indicated that mortgage application fees, if they are charged, are used to cover the hard costs of an appraisal and credit report and that keeping a {$500.00} fee, especially when the application process is cancelled in the first 24 hours, and the appraisal is waived, is far from standard procedure and that keeping the deposit is unethical. 

Our attorney recommended filing complaints with the CFPB and the XXXX. 

We would like a refund of our {$500.00} application fee, as no hard costs were incurred by the lender and the time from first contact to cancellation was less than a day.