Consumer complaint received 2018-11-06
Product: Mortgage — Conventional home mortgage
Issue: Applying for a mortgage or refinancing an existing mortgage — 
Company: Aurora Financial, LLC (VA)

We contacted Aurora Financial, XXXX XXXX XXXX # XXXX, XXXX, VA XXXX early in the home purchase process and Mr. XXXX XXXX was assigned as our loan officer. We submitted all our documents in XXXX, XXXX. Mr. XXXX reviewed our documents and repeatedly assured as that he went to his underwriters multiple times that he got approval from his underwriters. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, we signed a purchase contract and after consulting Mr. XXXX, he said, after reviewing all documents we submitted, underwriter approved our loan application. We locked our rate for a plain vanilla 30-year conventional loan with 21 % down and Mr. XXXX provided us with a loan estimation. 

From XX/XX/XXXX to XX/XX/XXXX, market rates went up at least 25 basis points. 

On XX/XX/XXXX, Mr. XXXX told us that he can no longer honor the loan estimation he provided on XX/XX/XXXX because of our DTI. He provided a new loan worksheet which asked for more than {$100000.00} downpay ( close to 40 % ) He picked out a home office deduction on our tax return ( we submitted our XXXX, XXXX, XXXX in XXXX, XXXX. ) And he informed us that it was calculated based on XXXX guidelines. We provided him with ( real ) XXXX guidelines showing that it does not need to be counted in DTI calculation. See attached XXXX Selling Guide Announcement XXXX. 
Mr. XXXX, having no XXXX guidelines to use as an excuse this time, did not provide a legitimate reason as to why they are coming out of this novel way of calculating DTI after sitting on our tax returns for four months. 

We are very concerned about 3 points : 1 ) Bait-and-Switch : Aurora had more than 4 months to review and raise an issue of our DTI and it provided us with great rates and repeated assurance. But as soon as we are under contract and under time crunch, Aurora chose to change our loan estimates and significantly increase our costs. We did a quick search and it turned out and it is not the first time that Aurora, specifically Mr. XXXX, bait-and-switched consumers and gave a different DTI calculation after sitting on documents for weeks and months to corner consumers. 

2 ) Contract and Fair Dealing with Consumers : after market rates went up 25 basis points in a week, Aurora chose to invalidate our loan estimates by imposing rules not  required by XXXX guidelines. Aurora did not lock in good faith if it can arbitrarily choose different rules to re-calculate DTI once market rate goes up. Aurora was never transparent in their DTI calculation. Instead, it chose to manipulate DTI by  ignoring income sources such as investment income and income from contract works from the other spouse and adding in debts that XXXX specifically instructed not to be included in DTI calculation. Aurora made the DTI cut off at 47 % while all other lenders and XXXX made the cut off percentage at 50 %. Aurora informed us that they do a risk-based calculation ( i.e. charge us more ) if the percentage goes over 47 %. So it had every incentive to manipulate the DTI to be over 47 % to simply charge more money. This, to us, is plain and simple consumer fraud. 

3 ) Targeting Minority Applicants : imposing on the fly, none-XXXX rules leads to questions as to whether these rules have been applied uniformly. We have a strong suspicion that the out-of-blue, none XXXX way of calculate DTI is used to screen out minority applicants like us. Also during our conversation with Aurora, Mr. XXXX informed us that Aurora does not like working with applicants who has multiple jobs and give a significant higher rate for those with multiple XXXX, who again, tend to be minority applicants like us, even if the person had been in the same line of trade for the past 6 years. 

We would like to CFPB to investigate Aurora 's bait-and-switch technique, contract and fair dealing practices, and targeting minority applicants with arbitrary rules.

We attached 3 documents below. We are happy to provide more. 
- 1 ) Contact with Aurora in XXXX, XXXX : " it sounds like you will qualify ''. And we can make sure after you complete the application ( which we did XXXX. 
- 2 ) Loan estimate XX/XX/XXXX. 
- 3 ) XXXX Selling Guide Announcement XXXX. Pg 2 Unreimbursed Employee Business Expenses. 

-- -- The Loan Officer 's contact information : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX Loan Officer Vice President NMLS # XXXX Aurora Financial - Direct Lender XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX VA XXXX Direct XXXX Office XXXX ext. XXXX Fax XXXX XXXX www.auroraf.com