Complaint Review: Mountain Mortgage

I would like to start off with saying how unprofessional Mountain Mortgage Corp is.  I would never recommend this company to my worst enemy.  At first the experience started out alright.  In conversations with Phil Merola, I thought he was going to be there to help me every step of the way.  The first week or so before even starting the mortgage process he was usually available to answer any questions and would return my calls and emails in a decent time.  By the end of my experience he was hanging up on my boyfriend and not dealing with my case at all.

          When I was first given Phil’s contact information I thought I was in good hands.  When we began looking at houses, he sent me a pre-approval letter with out even checking my boyfriends or my credit.  He only asked us what we wanted to pay monthly, and our salaries to figure out what we would be approved for.  After about three months we found a house that we fell in love with.  I called Phil immediately so we could start the process to get a mortgage.  I even put more % down to make the payments lower. 

          This is when we started sending all the information he needed to him.  I spent countless hours gathering all the information needed and faxing and emailing everything.  My mother had used him as well to refinance so Phil called my mother to talk about our credit.  I didn’t think that was the right thing to do.   My mother was trying to help us and find ways for us to make our payments lower. Considering this wasn’t Phil’s first mortgage he should of known what kind of paperwork we would need beforehand. 

          I would get constant emails asking for more and more information that I had already sent.  At this point Phil had started to delegate to someone else in his office, Lizette Jimenez.  It was a Friday and almost at the end of the day when I received an email asking for all these documents that I know I had faxed over, even having the confirmation receipt.  I was told they did not have it, so I had to go to my parents that night an hour away from me so I could re-send the documents.  This made me lose a couple of business days that the mortgage could have been worked on.  Everytime I would try and contact Phil from here on, he was never in the office.  He would take days to respond to me, and always put me off onto Lizette. He never even introduced her threw email. I only received an email asking for more information from her randomly on Friday.

          I am constantly in contact with this company as well as my realtor and my attorney, who have been more then helpful in working with me and helping me the best they can.  My mother also had to get involved in making calls to our investor, since he was the one who suggested this company, to get a move on the process.  Each time I would contact them I would never get in touch with Phil, and Lizette would say they are working on it.    My attorney even had to ask the sellers attorney for a few days extension for the loan commitment, because they didn’t have enough paperwork from us.  The week we were supposed  to have a commitment from this company, each day they asked for more and more paperwork. Some they had already, and others I had no way of getting.  My mother had to get involved again and contact Don who handles our investments, to send paperwork over to them so we could get this commitment. 

          Our commitment eventually came, days later then we should have had it.  Our monthly payment was also very high.  We were PROMISED by Phil that this wouldn’t be the payment and the percentage rate would go down.  That was a LIE.   We were promised a lot of things by Phil that I have now realized were never going to happen.  We were promised that we would have a commitment in time and we didn’t. We were promised that our payments would be lower, and they weren’t.  We were also told that in six months we would easily be able to refinance and have lower payments, which I have found out cannot and will not happen in that short of time period.  During this process my boyfriend has tried to contact Phil and has been hung up on by him twice.  The amount of unprofessionalism this company has shown us doesn’t even compare to what I am writing.  This company obviously knows what goes into getting a mortgage and has done nothing to help us along the process. 

          At this point two closing dates have come and gone.  We have spent thousands more on rent, cable, and PSE&G then we should have.  We have had to cancel and reschedule cable and movers to the point the movers don’t want to deal with us anymore.  We are still waiting for our final clearance from the underwriter so that we can close.  We have called, sent emails, our attorney has also called numerous times with no avail. I have never had such a horrible and stressful experience in my life.  It has gotten to the point that I am sick to my stomach and my hair has started to fall out in clumps.  No one should have to go through this type of experience in their life, especially for first time home buyers.  When I would contact Lizette asking for help I would receive nothing but attitude saying “how many times do I need to tell you….” The items needed, not guiding me at all.  This is absolutely no way a company should treat their customers.  Everything mentioned doesn’t even come close to what we have gone through with this mortgage. 

          To anyone looking for a mortgage to purchase a home, please save yourself from what we have gone through and use any other company other than Mountain Mortgage Corp.  I absolutely cannot wait until my closing is finally cleared and I can move into my house that I should have been living in for at least two weeks.  The second I can refinance with another company I will.  This company does not deserve one penny of my money.  Make sure they don’t take any of yours either.