Consumer complaint received 2018-11-15
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage — 
Company: WELLS FARGO & COMPANY (NM)

I wish to make two complaints about my mortgage experience with Wells Fargo.

The first issue pertains to closing. I will attach a long, long document that details the whole process, but the upshot of it is that I nearly lost my new house -- -I nearly failed to close on my new house -- -due to Wells Fargo 's incompetence, nonfeasance, and inertia. I would have lost thousands and thousands of dollars in inspections, earnest money, travel expenses, and so on. 

And, of course, I would have had nowhere to live in my new city with just days before my new job was to start. 

Again, I won't ply you with all those many, many problems and errors committed by Wells Fargo here in this note -- -those details are attached in the note below -- -but the lowlights include : my having to drive 1000 miles in 16 hours to get a background check done mere days before closing even though Wells Fargo had had the documents that indicated such a background check was necessary for nearly a month. Also, within 48 hours of closing I was told that Wells Fargo had not yet completed their verification of pervious employment and so I had to take emergency action with that issue, as well, by contacting my employer, with whom I had a very bad split. 

There were many more problems, of course, and we ended up being unable to close until more than a week after the original deadline, which is problematic because the seller had unalterable plans that would take her out of the state ( and make her unable to attend the closing ). The only reason we were able to close at all is because the seller kindly agreed to blind-sign all the closing forms before she left town so that I could sign my part of the forms over a week later when Wells Fargo finally go their act together. 

So if it hadn't been for the kindness of the seller, I would have lost the house entirely. 

A related problem is that instead of preparing for my new job as a professor -- -creating syllabi, completing readings, preparing courses and lectures and so on -- -I was instead putting out all the fires that Wells Fargo had ignited. 

Wells Fargo knew that they had screwed up mightily and they instigated their own investigation, decided that they were culpable, and awarded me a check for {$250.00}, which I still find highly insulting. 

These difficulties with closing on the property are certainly egregious, but there is a second, much larger problem : The home equity loan I was promised. 

When I started the loan process with XXXX XXXX at Wells Fargo I specifically told him that the house, which cost 180K or so, needed at least 40K worth of repairs and improvements. ( My budget went as high as 250K, but my plan was to buy a cheaper house with potential and then spend what was necessary to make it habitable and nice. ) He told me on the phone SEVERAL TIMES that that would be no problem as long as I put down a larger down payment : 25 %, he said, rather than 20 %. 

I said fine and did so, which cost me an extra 10K or so. 

When the house FINALLY closed I revisited the subject of the home equity loan and I was told no, Wells Fargo would NOT be granting me such a loan. 

I tried many times to discuss this with XXXX XXXX -- -I also wrote and called several times with a separate issue ; I was unsure if my payments were going through and I was afraid that my automatic withdrawal wasn't working and that I was already in violation of my mortgage agreement -- -and he simply never returned my calls or replied to my emails. 

So I feel like the victim of an enormous bait-and-switch : as soon as Wells Fargo had my money, they quit responding to me and stonewalled me about the home equity loan. 

So instead of being able to put that 40K or so in savings ( and I've never had any savings to speak of in my entire life ) and using it to start a family with my partner ( whose father, by the way, I was unable to ask for permission to marry her because I had to drive 1000 overnight to deal with the background check screw-up that Wells Fargo committed ), I had to use all that money on repairs and improvements to the house.

My situation now is this : I have a house that is only partially repaired and improved. I have paid for all that work out of my own pocket -- -a pocket which, by the way, is reduced by nearly 10K because of XXXX XXXX XXXX bait-and-switch regarding the size of the downpayment -- -so instead of having about 50K to start a new life and a new family with my partner, I now have about 4 thousand dollars in savings. 

Which is not enough to start a new family. 

I'm XXXX. My partner is XXXX and is -- -how can I say this? -- -passionately interested in starting a family right now. 

That was our whole plan in moving down here : a good new job, a nice new house, and a family. 

Now that can't happen. 

And it likely won't happen in the near future, given how much savings I now have to build back up. And it's not melodrama when I say : I'm not sure if the relationship will survive, now that a family is out of the question for the foreseeable future. 

But Wells Fargo, for their part, squeezed an extra ten grand out of me for that down payment and they seem to care so little about how they have ruined my new life in my new state -- -and my hope of starting a family -- -that they don't even bother to return my calls or emails. 

I should add that in the last month, my central AC system has failed and it seems as if the house might need a whole new roof, too, which could cost as much as another {$40000.00}, which I obviously no longer have. And since I can not get a home equity loan after all, who the XXXX knows how I am going to pay for any of this.