Jason Swanson

"Things went well with First Home Mortgage (FHM) throughout much of the initial process. There was a snag in the process when FHM attempted to get the borrower's Certificate of Eligibility from the VA, so Mr. Brendan asked the borrower to call VA to get the issue resolved. The borrower was willing to do whatever necessary to help to expedite the process. All it took to get the issue resolved was for the borrower to make a phone call asking for the VA representative to look into the issue and it was resolved. The VA representative who resolved the issue explained to the borrower that a representative from FHM could have made the phone call and had the issue resolved. The borrower kept close contact with FHM's staff throughout the process to do whatever necessary to keep the process on track and responded to all request in a timely manner. A settlement date had been scheduled and moved twice. October 6th was the second date that settlement was scheduled. Prior to October 6th, a representative from the settlement office contacted the borrowers to inform them that FHM was moving the settlement date once again. The new date was to be October 13th. When the settlement officer made the borrower aware of this change, the borrowers asked if there was any way that the settlement could take place any day during the week of October 5th. FHM said that it was not possible and the earliest that the settlement could take place would be October 13th. Having no other choice, the borrowers rearranged their schedules to be available for settlement on October 13th. At 10:08 AM on October 12th, the borrowers contacted the settlement officer to verify the time for settlement. This started a string of communications between the settlement agent, the lender, and the borrower. Late in the afternoon the borrower was told that the settlement was not going to take place on October 13th because FHM would not have the documents ready. Why was this not communicated to the borrower before this time? The communications continued and FHM said they would not have the documents ready and there was no way settlement could or would take place on October 13th. Finally, very late in the day, Mr. Brendan got involved. The borrower was pushed to the end of his rope and told Mr. Brendan that the borrowers were going to cancel the application. This got the attention of the office manager (Brian), who did not want the borrowers to cancel their application and for FHM to lose a mortgage. He called the borrowers and eventually guaranteed that settlement would take place on October 13th and it did. Somebody dropped the ball on this big time and unnecessarily created a very stressful situation for the borrowers, leaving them with a bad impression of FHM. Apparently the borrowers' application was misplaced and forgotten until the borrower made contact to verify the settlement time. I would think a company as large as FHM would have a better process of keeping track of applications and the loan officer would be more concerned about his clients getting to settlement as scheduled. Brian and Mr. Brendan both offered apologies which the borrowers accepted. But, the damage was done and the ending to the process was very unpleasant. "