Mesa Mortgage Company ordered to shut down

This morning I came across a story on azcentral.com while I was sipping on my cup of coffee. Reading the headline Mortgage company shut down Mesa-based firm caught in state’s fraud crackdown immediately grabbed my attention since I just got over an unbelievably bad experience with a Loan Officer. Guess what? That loan officer was working for the same mortgage company, Eagle First Mortgage, that was mentioned in the article.

Thinking back, that transaction had all the ingredients for a disaster; I had a listing where the seller was in a pre-foreclosure situation and I was under the gun to sell the property. The market got soft, the sellers pretty close on being upside down and we were headed into the holiday season. Everything seemed to be against us to get the property sold and finally we received an offer. The offer was not the strongest ($500.00 as earnest deposit, no signature on the loan status report showing 100% financing with an 80/20 loan) and I advised my client not to get too excited about it and we continued to market the property for back-up offers. In addition I advised my clients to get all the necessary items together to be sent to the loss prevention department in order to prepare for a short-sale.

The buyer’s agent was really excited since it apparently was his first deal and as his excitement increased my level of excitement decreased. I became even more concerned when I attempted to call the loan officer to request a Loan Status Update and all I heard was “The Cricket Customer is not able to receive phone calls at this time”. For everybody who is not familiar with Cricket Communication, it is a cell phone carrier with no contract commitment (pay as you go). I tried again a couple of hours later and got the same message. Feeling really uneasy about this I called the buyer’s agent and expressed my concerns about the loan officer and reminded him about his fiduciary duty to protect his client. That did not really make an impression on the buyer’s agent and his response was that his buyer selected the mortgage company and that he has no control over that. Taking a deep breath after that conversation, I sent the loan officer an email requesting a Loan Status Report with proper signatures along with a Loan Status Update and to my surprise the email did not bounce back, however to this day I have not received any emails from the loan officer. The only emails I have ever received were communication from the loan officer to the buyer’s agent forwarded to my email address. The funny part about this is, that the English used by the Loan Officer in the emails to the buyer’s agent was perfect, and yet, on the rare occasion I managed to reach someone by using the provided phone number on the loan status report, I was passed on to somebody else who could speak English.

I guess the crescendo of this nightmare was that we went 2 days past the close of escrow date to find out that not all prior to funding conditions were met, even though we were promised that all conditions were met and that the documents were ordered and en route to the title company. Ultimately the loan could not be closed with the lender the loan officer placed the loan to. In plain English we were lied to. 2 days past the close of escrow date and with lots of good faith on behalf of my sellers we issued a notice of cure period just in case, so we were able to accept another offer if we would have received one.

The buyer’s agent was equally frustrated. And I could not imagine this being my first transaction. So the buyer’s agent called the loan officer and was told that the loan could not get done with the lender they placed it to, however they found another wholesale lender they can place the loan with and they could close within 10 days. Again, I advised the buyer’s agent that perhaps a different mortgage company would be in the best interest to his client. But no they had to go with the same loan officer.

To make a long story short, the transaction did close almost 4 weeks late, however it was not easy. The loan officer did not speak English at all, it was nearly impossible to get a response from Eagle First and I always was made to speak to somebody other than the loan officer, the buyer’s agent was new to the business and this was his first transaction, whoever was placing and processing the loan at the Eagle First had no clue, the buyer’s agent had to make a concession since we went way past the close of escrow time and the sellers did not have enough cash at close of escrow to pay for the accrued interest.

In sum, it was my fiduciary duty to put up with this insanity to facilitate the successful close of escrow for my sellers and subsequently to avoid a foreclosure. There is hope that this new buyer’s agent got a good taste on how it is NOT done and I am sure glad that a shady mortgage outfit is being closed down.