Complaint Review: JP Morgan Chase Bank - Arlington Texas

It has been a nightmare dealing with Chase Mortgage Lending.  Thanks to them the closing of our house has been delayed and we may be homeless because we were forced to find a new lender at the last minute.  Our Mortgage relationship started January of this year 2012 when we applied for a mortgage loan online.  We were at that time assigned a loan officer by the name of Glen we worked with Glen through our pre-qualification phase while we dealt with a builder who was going to be building us our house.  We ran into some delays due to building permits with the city we were building our house in which took us in to about April before we were able to start with the build.  This whole time we had been sending emails and leaving Glen progress of the build process but never received anything back.  His voice mail however always stated that he was on vacation.  

Fast forward to about June our house was beginning to take shape contractors were hired building material ordered and the frame had been put up.  We still had not heard anything from Glen.  It was about the end of July we had some family emergencies towards the end of June and beginning of July that took us away for a bit so we didn't try contacting Glen for a few weeks.  Towards the end of July after everything calmed down for a bit I tried calling Glen again since we were nearing the completion of our house and needed to get the ball rolling for the loan to get final approved.  As usual I get the voice mail that he's still on Vacation and will be returning soon.  So I decided to call their customer service line to see if they could patch me into Glen or give me information of when he would be back.  Come to find out Glen had resigned months ago and I was told I could talk to another loan officer if I wanted.  So they patched me into a new loan officer Paul and the first thing the Paul says to me is, "Since you're house is still in a build process I can't help you please call me back when the house is completed."  I tried explaining to him the situation and that Glen had said there would be no problem getting the loan ready so that we can close at the time the house is completed.  He stood firm to what he stated so I said fine I'll call back.  

My wife unsatisfied with that answer said that we should walk into a branch and talk to someone about it.  So we go into a branch office and we get scheduled a meeting to meet with their mortgage loan officer Julie in two days.  Two days goes past we go in and meet with Julie and she tells us, no we can proceed with the loan while the house is still building.  So Paul lies to me Glen resigned and now we have Julie.  Ok so we proceed and Julie submits our paperwork and application to underwriting.  It goes in and comes back and we are approved for our FHA loan as expected.  Yay!  Loan is set just waiting for the house to finish.  A week goes by and Julie calls us and says there is a problem.  The underwriter is requesting that we pay off some 5-6 year old collections on our credit reports because it was a requirement for our loan.  Julie tells us not to worry about it and that she can get that decision over turned and has done so before.  So we wait and leave it up to Julie.  A week later we get a letter stating we are approved but that we would need to pay off those collections and proof of the collections being paid off needed to be provided.  We call Julie to ask her and she says don't worry she is still working on it.  We tell her we don't mind paying but are concerned that it would bring our credit scores down if we touch old collections.  She says she knows and for us not to worry she will handle it.  A month goes by and she continues to give us the same answer.  

October comes around and we still have not gotten a definitive answer.  Our phone calls and emails are starting to not get answered again and our voice mails seems to be more of a storage vault for us to voice frustrations.  Julie however has no problem calling us on the 21st of October to tell us we need to extend our lock and that it will cost us $3100 for a 30 day extension.  We tell her fine proceed with the extension and we ask her the progress with the underwriter.  She tells us she just got back from vacation and will check on it but that we don't need to worry it will get over turned.  Come October 28th we are told by the builder that the house would be done and ready to close on the 16th.  We email and call Julie again and leave her a message as well as an email of what the builder said.  A few days later on November 1st we get an email from Julie that says, she has also resigned and that the underwriter has refused to change her decision and that the requirement is not an FHA requirement but a Chase requirement.  What?!?  You couldn't tell us that a month ago?  We do our research and yep it's not a requirement of FHA.  We call Julie's manager Irma and leave her a message.  Frustrated and upset that we weren't given any fair warning that this would be the final decision.  Irma returns my call a day later and says that it is an FHA requirement so I email her my research.  She calls back and says she will talk to the underwriter and get it overturned I tell her that we need a decision soon because we are ready to close on the 16th.  She assures me everything will be taken care of.  

I call everyday every other hour for the next 2 days I'm losing sleep and work over this emails and phone calls don't get returned it is already the 3rd of November.  Finally at 5:00PM on the 5th of November we get a call from Toney who says she is now our new loan officer.  Really?!?  She has no clue whats going on.  She didn't know that Irma was suppose to be working with the underwriter to get the collections situation ironed out.  I go through the whole story on what has happened our concern that we will not be able to get proof letters in time even if we paid those collections off and she says she will talk to Irma and the Underwriter and get us a decision.  Unsatisfied with those choice of words we started to look for another mortgage company just in case.  We call up two places and they both say the 16 is a stretch and that they can shoot for the 19-21st sometime but even then it's a stretch but they can try for the 16th if we want to proceed.  So we tell one of them yes to proceed and that if Chase gets back to us with a good decision then we will stick with Chase but if not we would go with then.  Toney finally gets back to us on the 9th and says we have to pay the collections the underwriter is not moving on her decision.  So I tell Toney we need to talk it over.  We look at the time line and figured there would be no way we could close with Chase on time because we would need to get the letters from the collections places and even if we did it would hurt our scores moving forward.  We call Toney back on the 12th and as usual no pick up.  I leave her a voicemail to tell her we decided to not go with Chase we send her an email as well.  

No phone call from her but we get a call a few hours later from Irma to apologize.  To me an apology does not make up for the headaches and frustrations of you guys not keeping us informed.  We went through 4 Loan Officers to find out at the last minute to tell us a final decision.  To me it is poor lending practice to lie about regulations and to make promises that cannot be kept.  It is even worse when you do not communicate with the borrowers.  Today is the 16th of November and we were unable to close because of you!  We have to be out of our current place by the 30th, carpets cleaned walls painted, everything out.  We need to setup utilities and especially internet because we need it in order to complete our work.  If we do not close by the 21st we will be faced to find a storage for our things and a place to stay that will afford us decent internet.  Extra money from our pockets thanks to you.  I recommend to anyone looking for a Mortgage to NEVER go with Chase.